Windows 10 Accidentally moved all my folders.

[Grant Olson]

I was trying to make hidden files appear, but I made a huge mistake and I unfortunately don't know what I did. When I was on the properties tab inside the users folder, I checked the box where it says hidden. I accepted everything about permissions, iirc, then it started a loading window doing something to all my files. Once it was done, all my files were hidden! I surfed the web and got to the tab where I could make hidden files show up (what I wanted to do in the first place) and they all showed up, but now the icons on my desktop background are now all are in a faded color and whenever I try to right click on any file in my C: drive, it gets stuck at a loading mouse pointer. Task manager always doesn't respond too and whenever I right click on a taskbar item and click any folder in the selection it says "This files has either been "moved, removed or renamed".


All in all, I think I made all my files temporary or hidden. Idk if they are the samething. I'm not so great with these kind of things, hence why I'm in this situation. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Neemobeer]

From a command prompt you can you the attrib utility to modify the settings. If you checked hidden you will want to do attrib -H %USERPROFILE% /S will remove the hidden flag from everything in your userprofile

 

[Grant Olson]

From a command prompt you can you the attrib utility to modify the settings. If you checked hidden you will want to do attrib -H %USERPROFILE% /S will remove the hidden flag from everything in your userprofile

It did the trick, but only made the files under my userprofile unhidden. I cannoy launch firefox for instance. It tells me there is another instance running. Same with any folder i try to open on my taskbar. Says it's been moved, renamed or removed. I can't even open up the windows start menu. I had to open cmd through the files directory. Task manager is also not responding whenever I open it up. What can I do? Maybe it's the fact I changed permissions for my account to access files or they are still hidden?

 

[Neemobeer]

If they are moved then your only option is to move them back/

 

[Grant Olson]

I didn't move them. If they are, then I don't know where they were moved to because I can find them in my file directory. Everything went to hell when I was in the Users folder, right clicked, accidentally checked hidden, and applied. It went through a whole process of doing the same to all my files because I gave it permission to.

 

[Neemobeer]

There are two different flags that will hide files H (hidden) and S (system) you can remove system with the same attrib command but use -S

 

[Grant Olson]

I typed in

attrib -H -S C:\*.* /S /D

A lot of 'access denied is showing up'

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi there,
if neemo's command line repairs aren't helping, it's possible you scrambled your Roaming Profile. There are 2 ways to fix this, and I'll start with the easy way.

Start with BACKING UP ALL YOUR PERSONAL DATA (Library folders) TO EXTERNAL MEDIA IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO!! Fooling around with command line commands and other repairs we suggest to you can result in IRRETRIEVABLE DATA LOSS!

That being said we normally suggest that you use the built-in Windows "undo" program to fix mistakes like you made. It's called SYSTEM RESTORE, and it allows you to "rollback" your system to a point in time prior to you making your "boo-boo". You can go to the Cortana search box in W10 and type in "rstrui", it will appear on your search menu with an icon and the label "run command" underneath it's description. Left-click on that icon and it will open up the SYSTEM RESTORE program. Click "next" and the program will open and show you a short list of restore points that were saved on your computer. Usually within a few days or a week or so of today's date. If you see a date in that list that's prior to the "boo-boo" date; pick that one, precede and follow the prompts. System Restore will rollback your system to that date/time and it will take from 30 min. to a couple of hours or more depending on how large your hard drive is, the capacity of your hard drive, and how many other drives you have connected to your computer. After your system is restored, it will usually reboot your computer automatically without your intervention, and you can just log in and see if your computer desktop is back to the way it was with all your folders, icons, desktop wallpaper, etc. If so, it worked and your good to go!

Note: It's important to know that many W10 computers have the System Restore function disabled from the factory (we are seeing this a lot more now!). So, if the System Restore program tells you it has no restore points saved, and therefore cannot Restore your system, this repair is a "no-go" for you! And you'll have to post back and try more extreme measures to fix your computer.

This fix works about 70% of the time on these types of problems. If it doesn't post back, and we'll refer you to more in-depth troubleshooting procedures. Most of these will include us asking if you have Windows10 factory Recovery Media (Discs or USB), so you might as well look for those now as it takes most of my clients weeks or even months to find or make them. They are often lost, misplaced, stolen, tossed in the trash, etc.

Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Neemobeer]

It's possible you screwed up the permissions too. Try running icacls %USERPROFILE% /t and paste that here. You should see at least COMPUTERNAME\USER (OI)(CI)(F) on most of the items returned