"Where are my files?"



  • A coworker had our IT department fix his work laptop PC recently - I think the disk was being reported as full by Windows. He was rather surprised and vexed when he couldn't find his files, which were apparently in a folder called "Temp" because they were work-in-progress.

     Not "C:\Documents and Settings\Clueless\Documents\Temp", but "C:\Temp".

    Oh dear.

    If only he'd copied them to his dedicated personal area on the network from time to time...



  • D'oh. Reminds me of the user who for several years had been storing his email in the "deleted items" folder in Outlook. I was called on to fix something, I can't even remember what it was now, and on closing and restarting Outlook, I did the usual thing of saying yes to "do you want to delete the contents of your deleted items folder" prompt. The one that he'd apparently religiously been avoiding for these past few years...

    The look on his face when he sat back down at his computer was just priceless.

    "......You deleted my email!"
    "Oh sorry, did you have something in there that you didn't mean to delete?"
    "...."

    Well, it turns out that he'd been storing all of his mail in there because "it's easy to use - just press the delete key and the computer files it away for me".

    He put a complaint in the next day, but unsurprisingly it didn't get very far.



  • This is ingenious.

    If someone's looking for your important papers they'll go staight to the filing cabinet or desk.  But they'll never suspect the bottom of the trash can!  In fact, I'm going to withdraw my life savings from the so-called "bank" and store it in the dumpster out back.  This plan can't fail.



  • I worked corporate tech support once for a large pharmaceutical company.  Each employee was only allocated a certain amount of e-mail space.  Not a huge amount, but enough that you could get e-mail for 6 months straight and not have to delete anything.  This one girl called in complaining that it's saying her e-mail quota was reached, even though she get rid of everything, and everything "keeps coming back".  I looked at her past history, and there are at least 5 cases wherein she had the same problem, every case was closed with the resolution "Explained how to use e-mail". 

    I look at her e-mail and sure enough, everything is there, under the deleted items, in a very elaborate file tree.  I told her that in order to remove the e-mail, it had to be deleted from the deleted items.  We went back and forth on that for a good 20 minutes.  "But I deleted them."  "No, you just marked them for deletion, they don't actually get deleted until you explicitly tell it to." "But I deleted them."  I finally convinced her of this and asked her if she wanted me to show her how to empty her deleted items.  Nope, can't do that, she wants to keep most of them, as she "needs" them. 

     
    Not only that but she expected Outlook to psychically know which e-mails she really wanted to get rid of and which ones she wanted to keep stored in the deleted items folder, hence the whole thing about the e-mails keep coming back since she thought that outlook would get rid of them. I spent over 45 minutes on the phone trying to explain to her and she just wouldn't get it.  I finally just sent an actual person out to help her.  In the private comments of the case, I noted: "Tried to explain how to use e-mail.  She just doesn't get it.  So show up when you're in a good mood, or else you'll just end up smacking her upside the head"
     



  • o_O



  • I have a similar story to the OP.

    I was working in the IT department of a large company during the summer of 2001. My job was to upgrade all of the computers from Windows 95, to Windows 2000. For the most part, this was fairly easy. Almost all of the computers had the same hardware, so it was a case of backing up the users files and e-mails, writing a disk image to the disk, and restoring their files.

    One morning, after a batch of upgrades, I got a call from one of the girls whoes computer I had upgraded the night before. It went something like this:

    "Where are my files? You deleted all my files!"

    "I'm pretty sure I backed up everything important, where did you keep your files?"

    "C:\Windows\temp"

    "..."

    Turns out, that's where she had been keeping all of her files. Every single file since she started working for the company some years ago.

    I still can't fathom why she thought that was a suitable place. I mean, what could "temp" mean, other then temporary or temperature?
     



  • Its easy to say that "temp" is no-go, since readers of this forum have the benefit of generally being IT professionals. But for the user, the distinction between "temp" and "work in progress" is a little less clear. Perhaps a little bit of basic IT training (at entry level) would be more useful than criticising people for not being experts? i.e. "Welcome to AcmeCorp. Paragraph 1: how to contact technical support; Paragraph 2: how to start with your computer / laptop / docking station; Paragraph 3: the network - wher to find and store your files and data...

    ?



  • "But I AM a Temp!  Isn't that directory for me?"

     



  • The Real WTF is that normal users could write to "C:\Windows\Temp" in the first place.



  • Working in a helpdesk about 12 years ago, back in the early Windows 3.1 days, a co-worker gets a call from a user stating that their computer would not start.  After troubleshooting my co-worker got back to the office and laughed as he told the story.  User, being semi-literate about computer decided to 'clean up' the files on the computer.  After deleting unnecesary ones, he proceeded to put the ones he wasn't sure about into a folder marked 'Checkout'.  Into this folder he placed the config.sys and autoexec.bat files...

     Also, on another occassion another co-worker gets a call from a user my computer won't boot.  Unknown to the user, my co-worker investigated the problem from across the network and didn't need to go to the user's computer.  First thing she noticed, the disk drive was out of space (100 MB days) and the file tree didn't show 100MB worth of files.  Further investigation showed a hidden folder called 'Pictures' hold over 75MB worth of files.  This was also the days that we didn't have firewalls or ways to track where people went on the internet...



  • As a note to all you system administrators:

     Please stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook.  I use temp folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my files.  Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually delete them.  This is why I don't hesitate to delete email.  I know that if I actually do need it I can go find it.  Then later I purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as I'm pretty sure I won't need it.  Once again, if some dumb shit just got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me first, I would be absolutely furious.  The whole point here is tell or ask them before deleting their files.  They might not use the same filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer works and actually expect to be able to retrieve  their deleted email.
     



  • Side note about Outlook.

    Click on the "Deleted Items" folder, then look under the "Tools" menu; behold the "Recover Deleted Items" menuitem!  Just make sure you click it before they get cycled.

    At least on Outlook 2003...

     



  •  @tster said:

    As a note to all you system administrators:

     Please stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook.  I use temp folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my files.  Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually delete them.  This is why I don't hesitate to delete email.  I know that if I actually do need it I can go find it.  Then later I purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as I'm pretty sure I won't need it.  Once again, if some dumb shit just got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me first, I would be absolutely furious.  The whole point here is tell or ask them before deleting their files.  They might not use the same filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer works and actually expect to be able to retrieve  their deleted email.
     

    Do you expect maintenance to ask you before taking out the trash?

     "Oh shit, I kept my paycheck in the trash can! Why didn't building maintenance ask me first before taking it out!"
     



  • @Veinor said:

     @tster said:

    As a note to all you system administrators:

     Please
    stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the
    folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook.  I use temp
    folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some
    cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my
    files.  Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well
    that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I
    actually delete them.  This is why I don't hesitate to delete email.  I
    know that if I actually do need it I can go find it.  Then later I
    purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as
    I'm pretty sure I won't need it.  Once again, if some dumb shit just
    got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me
    first, I would be absolutely furious.  The whole point here is tell or
    ask them before deleting their files.  They might not use the same
    filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer
    works and actually expect to be able to retrieve  their deleted email.
     

    Do you expect maintenance to ask you before taking out the trash?

     "Oh shit, I kept my paycheck in the trash can! Why didn't building maintenance ask me first before taking it out!"
     

    Exactly. The temp folder is understandable - I have my own "temp" folder (although I'm not silly enough to use C:\TEMP, C:\Windows\TEMP, etc), but you know, DELETED ITEMS means just that. There is a reason that the icon looks like a rubbish bin. Of course, the desktop equivalent of the DELETED ITEMS folder isn't the temp folder, it's the recycle bin (or your OS equivalent). Both make their name blindingly obvious what to do, and you press the DELETE key to move stuff there.

    The real life item that both are modelled on, named after, and have their icons resembling, nobody in their right would expect anyone to use as a storage area. Why should someone be given unreasonable slack just because it's on a computer screen?

    What part of DELETED ITEMS or RECYCLE BIN sounds even remotely like "long term storage" or "live working area" in real life or on a computer screen?



  • @tster said:

    Please stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook.  I use temp folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my files.  Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually delete them.  This is why I don't hesitate to delete email.  I know that if I actually do need it I can go find it.  Then later I purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as I'm pretty sure I won't need it.  Once again, if some dumb shit just got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me first, I would be absolutely furious.  The whole point here is tell or ask them before deleting their files.  They might not use the same filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer works and actually expect to be able to retrieve  their deleted email.
    Do you use Exchange at work? Don't be surprised if one day the e-mails in your Deleted items start magically disappearing when the administrators set up automatic purging. You know, the same way the trash magically disappears from the bin next to your desk every day?



  • @RayS said:

    Why should someone be given unreasonable slack just because it's on a computer screen?

    Exactly because it's on a computer screen, people should be given any level of unreasonable slack*.

    Computers are not reality, no matter how many (in)appropriate metaphors you apply in HCI. It's separate domain that requires a separate mindset to work with. Metaphors do relatively little to aid understanding of a computer system.

    @RayS said:

    What part of DELETED ITEMS or RECYCLE BIN sounds even remotely like "long term storage" or "live working area" in real life or on a computer screen?

    Entirely irrelevant*. See former point. The Outlook trash can has only a tenuous connection to the real one beside the desk, made even thinner by the fact that it's called the technical "Deleted Items" instead of "Trash".


    Be aware that you've probably existed in this world for a good three years before you found out what the trash can is or how it works.

    *) admittedly, this is an ideal-world idea, but one should try to live by it, even if it's hard or frustrating at times.



  • I agree with those that say deleted items are for, ehh, deleted items. Half my office use the deleted folder for keeping old stuff - assuming that 'delete' means 'get it off my screen but keep it just in case, no matter how many gigabytes of server space I'm occupying'. Personally I find it quite satisfying to delete everything permanently - once in a while I'll have a 'd'oh, I deleted it' moment but  having 5,000 e-mails in one giant folder would be quite depressing. My solution at work: move everyone to an IMAP server. (No, this wasn't the only reason I did it, but it was a pleasant side effect). Outlook crosses through deleted items, forcing you to purge (which users actually do, because the line is so annyoing). If you want to archive something, you have to actually move it to another folder yourself (or set up a rule). No calls relating to deleted items for months.

     

    As an aside, I did some work for a small company that was having great trouble with Exchange Server. Once a year, their internal mail server would fail completely and their uninformed solution was to reinstall Exchange. It seems they'd bought a stock Dell server with Small Business Server, installed on the default 12GB C: drive (including Exchange mail stores). Every January, people would get back from Christmas holiday and start e-mailing each other their holiday photos...



  • The real WTF is the fact that nearly every corporate email system is setup with a ridiculously low amount of storage space and the fact that IT people are so clueless as to how users want to use email that they think it's the users' fault when they craft nasty workarounds or fail to archive their old email. Is it really so hard to give everyone a few GB of space? I know it can be done because I used to run our corporate email server and I didn't impose any limit on account storage. We were bought out by a big company and now have 200 MB per email account, which isn't nearly enough.

    Our IT guy always tells us not to use email as a document storage facility, but he's ignoring the fact that most corporate documents sent through email are contextually linked to the email's author and content. We need to keep an archive of our email because information from a year or two ago may need to be recalled quickly. Email arrives to us in a format that's already reasonable for a permanent personal document archive (timestamped, sortable, and searchable) so why are we required to archive the email again somewhere else or create a nasty offline folder or other nonsense?

    Disk space is cheap. Our 500 user email system can be stored on a 1 TB RAID array and give us plenty of storage. With 200 MB of storage each the whole company is only using 100 GB. That's 140 GB less storage than I have in my home desktop. Using SCSI drives you can build a TB array for well under $5000. Any company with 500 employees can spend that much several times over and given my conversations with upper management I know for certain that they'd all be behind spending money to give everyone more storage.

     The worst part about IT is the fact that they think corporate computer use rules should be made to suit their needs instead of suiting the users' needs.
     



  • I like these users. They are like a canary in a mine. Instead of warning you about toxic gas they warn that you may be using inappropriate software for the task in hand. Many people will happily waste hours using horrendously inefficient tools without so much as a peep.

    What's so great about these users is often they will not only tell you there is a problem but point you at potential solutions. For example the case of users quickly pressing delete and archiving their mail in the deleted items folder. Are they stupid or telling you they want a much simpler email client that behaves more like gmail?

    Of course some users are genuine idiots that will cause problems whatever you do but IME these people are usually quickly and easily identified and ignored.

     



  • @ender said:

    @tster said:
    Please stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook. I use temp folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my files. Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook. I know damn well that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually delete them. This is why I don't hesitate to delete email. I know that if I actually do need it I can go find it. Then later I purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as I'm pretty sure I won't need it. Once again, if some dumb shit just got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me first, I would be absolutely furious. The whole point here is tell or ask them before deleting their files. They might not use the same filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer works and actually expect to be able to retrieve their deleted email.
    Do you use Exchange at work? Don't be surprised if one day the e-mails in your Deleted items start magically disappearing when the administrators set up automatic purging. You know, the same way the trash magically disappears from the bin next to your desk every day?

    Yes I use it at work.  However, I work at a real company with actual documented procedures.  IT administrators don't wake up one morning and decide to change the way our email works.  Our email is never removed no matter what folder it is in by IT.  No matter how much you try and make the "Deleted Items Folder" sound like the trash can next to my desk, the reality is that it is a folder.  a folder that stores email messages just like my other 20 folders.  It just so happens that the deleted items folder is useful for email that I am mostly sure that I will not have to read again and is but a single key away for any email.


    Another reason it's stupid to delete temporary files and folders containing users data.  If I have my private space, where I am the only user with permissions, and I create a temp folder, I am not worried about it being deleted.  I might be tracking down a bug, keeping debug logs or something in there.  these IT people that are deleting this stuff aren't looking at the files to see what time they were created.  As someone earlier stated, they just delete al that stuff without thinking.  How are they to know if I was working with those files 2 months ago or 2 minutes ago when they don't even bother to check?



  • I did this on a borrowed company laptop that was out of space, in the process deleting some source code my boss was working on (in C:\Temp).  It cost him about a week of work, I think.  He was very reasonable and understanding about it (he's a smart guy, he should have known better than to keep stuff there).



  • @tster said:

    As a note to all you system administrators:

     Please stop thinking that users are stupid for expecting things to stay in the folders labeled temp or in the deleted folder in outlook.  I use temp folders for things all the time, and would be most unhappy if some cocky IT idiot logged on to my computer and just starting deleting my files.  Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually delete them.  This is why I don't hesitate to delete email.  I know that if I actually do need it I can go find it.  Then later I purge my deleted mail folder of everything over 3 or 4 months old, as I'm pretty sure I won't need it.  Once again, if some dumb shit just got on my computer and started deleting something without asking me first, I would be absolutely furious.  The whole point here is tell or ask them before deleting their files.  They might not use the same filing conventions that you use, but they might know how a computer works and actually expect to be able to retrieve  their deleted email.
     

     
    So basically you are saying it's easier to sort your actual files from the hundreds of ~ABC123.TMP files and the other cruft that every program collects in the temp folder, rather than have a simply named folder of your own that only you are deliberately writing to?

    Brillant.



  • @tster said:

    Yes I use it at work.  However, I work at a real company with actual documented procedures.  IT administrators don't wake up one morning and decide to change the way our email works.  Our email is never removed no matter what folder it is in by IT.  No matter how much you try and make the "Deleted Items Folder" sound like the trash can next to my desk, the reality is that it is a folder.  a folder that stores email messages just like my other 20 folders.  It just so happens that the deleted items folder is useful for email that I am mostly sure that I will not have to read again and is but a single key away for any email.
    I know several companies where the Exchange server became low on disk space, and the management didn't approve an upgrade, so the admins sent out several warnings that they'll enable automatic purging of Deleted Items, and the users stil whined when they did.
    @tster said:
    Another reason it's stupid to delete temporary files and folders containing users data.  If I have my private space, where I am the only user with permissions, and I create a temp folder, I am not worried about it being deleted.  I might be tracking down a bug, keeping debug logs or something in there.  these IT people that are deleting this stuff aren't looking at the files to see what time they were created.  As someone earlier stated, they just delete al that stuff without thinking.  How are they to know if I was working with those files 2 months ago or 2 minutes ago when they don't even bother to check?
    If the users follow procedures (store company-related documents on X:, store personal stuff you don't want to loose in Y:, don't expect things to stay around if they're in Recycle Bin/Deleted Items folders), I don't see why should there be a problem. We have a policy that when upgrading (replacing) user's computer, we keep the complete copy of old disk around for 2 weeks, just in case the user didn't follow procedures, but I don't remember a case when we actually needed that.



  • @tster said:

     

    Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that
    the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually
    delete them.

    The way I see it, files will remain in the outlook deleted folder only
    as long as you keep answering 'no' to the prompt that shows up every
    time you close.

    @dhromed said:

    It's separate domain that requires a separate mindset to work with.
    Metaphors do relatively little to aid understanding of a computer
    system.


    The trouble is that the metaphors are there to convey the meaning of the storage space. While you may ignore the intended meaning not everybody else will. You can do as you like on a personal computer, but in a company where the computer and its contents are property of said company, it would be safer to adhere to convention.

    There are lots of examples outside of computing: different coloured lights, walk/don't walk type stuff, private, staff only. They have no innate meaning ("what, you mean only staff who work here?", "but i wanted some privacy", and I remember a quote of somebody who believed yellow actually meant "go faster").

    But having read this thread I think it would be wise to leave an individual's personal computer completely intact while fixing it - similar to how I never rely on drivers to indicate correctly when I'm crossing the road at a roundabout.



  • @shakin said:

    The real WTF is the fact that nearly every corporate email system is setup with a ridiculously low amount of storage space and the fact that IT people are so clueless as to how users want to use email that they think it's the users' fault when they craft nasty workarounds or fail to archive their old email. Is it really so hard to give everyone a few GB of space? I know it can be done because I used to run our corporate email server and I didn't impose any limit on account storage. We were bought out by a big company and now have 200 MB per email account, which isn't nearly enough.

    Our IT guy always tells us not to use email as a document storage facility, but he's ignoring the fact that most corporate documents sent through email are contextually linked to the email's author and content. We need to keep an archive of our email because information from a year or two ago may need to be recalled quickly. Email arrives to us in a format that's already reasonable for a permanent personal document archive (timestamped, sortable, and searchable) so why are we required to archive the email again somewhere else or create a nasty offline folder or other nonsense?

    The problem is, those of us that use email storage as a useful tool are outnumbered by orders of magnitiute by the idiots that, if given unlimited mail storage, would just end up with 10 years/10GB/100,000 mails in the inbox worth of pointless drivel.

    By default, enforce a medium level limit, forcing the masses to actually delete the crap, and for the rare diamond in the rough that actually understands concepts such as "sorting and filing", lift the limit.



  • @bonzombiekitty said:

    I look at her e-mail and sure enough, everything is there, under the deleted items, in a very elaborate file tree.  I told her that in order to remove the e-mail, it had to be deleted from the deleted items.  We went back and forth on that for a good 20 minutes.  "But I deleted them."  "No, you just marked them for deletion, they don't actually get deleted until you explicitly tell it to." "But I deleted them."  I finally convinced her of this and asked her if she wanted me to show her how to empty her deleted items.  Nope, can't do that, she wants to keep most of them, as she "needs" them. 

    Outlook calls it "Deleted Items".

    GroupWise calls it "Trash".

    I get about 1 in 50 Outlook users I consult for give me the same argument as this lady. I have had ONE GroupWise user EVER try anything similar. Amazing what a difference a name makes in the way something is perceived.



  • Deleting emails

    One company I know of has a policy where all messages in the inbox are automatically deleted when they are more than 3 months old.  Users are told to move all messages that "there is a business reason to keep" into a personal folder on the user's own machine, and to delete all messages as soon as "there is no longer a business reason to keep the message."  Messages in the personal folders will not be deleted.  Old messages in the inbox will be deleted and will be impossible to retrieve.

    This isn't about disk space.  Think about it.

    What's the most dangerous thing to have when you're facing a lawsuit or investigation?  Old email.  The penalties for wilfully destroying evidence are severe.

    Company's position:  "We require all employees to keep all email that must be kept for a business, legal or regulatory reason.  We do not have enough disk space to hold all this mail on the company's server, so we require the employees to copy all this mail into a personal folder."

    Employee's position:  "Normally I move all the important messages into a personal folder.  I lost track of time and didn't get around to moving the messages in question.  They're from last quarter?  I thought they were more recent than that.  They're gone?  I didn't delete them.  I would never destroy evidence."

     



  • @ComputerForumUser said:

    @tster said:
     

    Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that
    the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually
    delete them.

    The way I see it, files will remain in the outlook deleted folder only
    as long as you keep answering 'no' to the prompt that shows up every
    time you close.

    What prompt is that? 



  • @tster said:


    Another reason it's stupid to delete temporary files and folders containing users data.  If I have my private space, where I am the only user with permissions, and I create a temp folder, I am not worried about it being deleted.  I might be tracking down a bug, keeping debug logs or something in there.  these IT people that are deleting this stuff aren't looking at the files to see what time they were created.  As someone earlier stated, they just delete al that stuff without thinking.  How are they to know if I was working with those files 2 months ago or 2 minutes ago when they don't even bother to check?

    Right, like if every user has their own X: drive, and you have X:\Temporary stuff\ and the IT admin clears that out, that's dumb of them. But C:\Temp, or C:\Windows\Temp... that's system stuff. Users shouldn't be writing to those, and I think that's what the OP was talking about.




  • @dhromed said:

    @RayS said:

    Why should someone be given unreasonable slack just because it's on a computer screen?

    Exactly because it's on a computer screen, people should be given any level of unreasonable slack*.

    Computers are not reality, no matter how many (in)appropriate metaphors you apply in HCI. It's separate domain that requires a separate mindset to work with. Metaphors do relatively little to aid understanding of a computer system.

    @RayS said:

    What part of DELETED ITEMS or RECYCLE BIN sounds even remotely like "long term storage" or "live working area" in real life or on a computer screen?

    Entirely irrelevant*. See former point. The Outlook trash can has only a tenuous connection to the real one beside the desk, made even thinner by the fact that it's called the technical "Deleted Items" instead of "Trash".


    Be aware that you've probably existed in this world for a good three years before you found out what the trash can is or how it works.

    *) admittedly, this is an ideal-world idea, but one should try to live by it, even if it's hard or frustrating at times.

    I don't think that, just because someone is dealing with computers, they should have a license to act stupid. There are limits.

     So, you're saying that the name is irrelevant? What if "My Documents" was called "XXX HOT PORN TEEN SEX"? Of course, I know that that's a blatant strawman argument, but you get what I'm saying.

    Also, it shouldn't take you three years to figure out that the thing with a trash can icon might possibly be an analogue of a garbage can. Unless you're still at the infant developmental stage, of course. 



  • @tster said:

    @ComputerForumUser said:
    @tster said:
     

    Same thing with the delete folder in Outlook.  I know damn well that
    the emails I delete will still be in the delete folder until I actually
    delete them.

    The way I see it, files will remain in the outlook deleted folder only
    as long as you keep answering 'no' to the prompt that shows up every
    time you close.

    What prompt is that? 

    Depends which version of Outlook you're thinking of. I have yet to encounter two different versions that behaved the same way in any noticable respect. 



  • I have a friend who believes he is saving disk space by storing his files in the Windows Recycle Bin. He can always pull out just the files he wants to work on.



  • @cangulo said:

    I have a friend who believes he is saving disk space by storing his files in the Windows Recycle Bin. He can always pull out just the files he wants to work on.
    Make sure that you have a video camera handy should he ever delete a (set of) file(s) fractionally smaller than the capacity of the recycle bin!

    Still, as has been pointed out above, this is perfectly normal and logical behaviour. Frankly, anyone who DOESN'T store emails and files in folders called "deleted items" are morons!



  • @tster said:

    What prompt is that? 

    I was refering to:

    @RayS said:

    ... and on closing and restarting Outlook, I did the usual thing of saying
    yes to "do you want to delete the contents of your deleted items
    folder" prompt. The one that he'd apparently religiously been avoiding
    for these past few years...

    If some versions don't ask that, then it's different - you'd have to actively seek to empty someone's trash.

     



  • @ComputerForumUser said:

    I remember a quote of somebody who believed yellow actually meant "go faster").

    It sure does mean "go faster to pass the crossroads before lights turn red", doesn't it.



  • @ComputerForumUser said:

    @tster said:

    What prompt is that? 

    I was refering to:

    @RayS said:

    ... and on closing and restarting Outlook, I did the usual thing of saying yes to "do you want to delete the contents of your deleted items folder" prompt. The one that he'd apparently religiously been avoiding for these past few years...

    If some versions don't ask that, then it's different - you'd have to actively seek to empty someone's trash.

     

     Using Outlook 2000 here, I have never seen such a message. I just checked, everything from apr-2001 (first day at work) is still there. Of course, I never use "delete" to remove messages, I always use shift-del-YESgoddammit instead (same as with files), but some things like meeting requests still end up there.


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