Redirecting the My Documents Folder

Where do you store your data before it is backed up?  Where are your important documents created before you back them up to another source?

One of the most important concepts in backing up data is that your backup is only as good as your last backup.

If you backed up your important documents a month ago, then your data is only good to last month. So, it is very important where you keep your data safe as your are creating your documents.

Do you create your documents on your computer, an external hard drive, a thumb drive, floppy, CD, or another computer?

For example, if you create them on a thumb drive and your computer hard drive crashes, you will get all the data you created up to the crash back. Your only risk is losing the thumb drive.

If you only save your data to another computer or server once a month then your risk is loosing a month's worth of data. You can protect this loss by redirecting your My Documents folder to the computer where you store backups or another computer. Odds are you will not have your computer's and the other computer's hard drive crash at the same time. We'll discuss backups of the backups at another time.

How to redirect data from you My Documents folder automatically as you create your data.

Windows 2000/XP

1. Right click on your My Documents Folder
2. Select Properties
3. On the target tab in the Target box, change the path to the location of the folder as in this example
   • From this C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents
   • To this \ \BackupServer\My Documents\    (Create the My Documents folder on your target computer)

Windows Vista

1. Right click on your My Documents Folder
2. Select Properties
3. On the Location tab in blank box, change the path to the location of the folder as in this example
4. From this C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents
   • From this C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents
   • To this \ \BackupServer\My Documents\    (Create the My Documents folder on your target computer)