How can I recover my files from my briefcase?

How to recover / secure missing files from Windows 7 update

• Please help my figure out if I can recover any of these lost files from a post-Windows 7 update fest/fix my process and avoid future problems. Rambling inside... So yesterday my Dell laptop running Windows 7 decided to do updates and restart itself. Fine. That's normal. Upon restart all my Chrome bookmarks were gone and all my folders (and files therein - it's mostly music, I buy and acquire a lot of music and it lives "on" the desktop until such time that I feel comfortable curating) that sit on the desktop were missing. I couldn't find the bookmarks, but I did find the folders/files and dragged them out of probably a TEMP folder back to the desktop, reconfigured my Library, and in the process renamed a couple folders, I think. Then last night it installed another update, restarted again, and this morning Chrome was as it was before (w all bookmarks and settings) but all the folders/files were gone. I've looked everywhere, revealed all hidden thingies, so on so forth. Logged on as Admin (which is the usual). Searched forums and followed what good advice I could. Can't find a trace. Apparently I am an idiot and didn't have a recent enough restore point. Much of it IS backed up, and some I can redownload from Amazon and even off our little mp3 players. I ran Recuva and it found a bunch of files too, and recovered them (into one huge disorganized folder of course); from an organizational standpoint, it is very annoying. 1. Can you think of any other steps I can take to recover files to how they were before? 2. Is it bad to store a lot of files "on" the desktop? 3. Have you experienced this sort of issue? I couldn't find much real help online. 4. Anything else?

• Answer:

  Apparently I am an idiot and didn't have a recent enough restore point. This isn't super helpful, but just as a data point - a restore point would not have helped you here. Restore points don't store any user/profile data. So, if you were to restore back to say, two months ago, your desktop would not look like it did two months ago - it only rolls back system settings/files.