SupportAssist Boost Deletions

@lmacri​ 

My computer is an Inspiron 15 3535
Windows 11 Home version 24H2
Support Assist 4.6.3

I'm not a "gamer", either--I play solitare, hearts, freecell, and Mahjong Titans. 
All are part of a package called "Windows 7 games for Windows 11".

I've used these games since Windows 7 and managed to retain my user data
over multiple PCs and Windows versions until Support Assist wiped it.

The files were in Appdata/local/Microsoft Games/Solitare, etc.
There are files like "HeartsSettings.xml" in each folder that were wiped by
Support Assist.  I did a disk scan using some file recovery software, but 
the files were gone.
I'm not optimistic about recovery, but I hoped someone might know a secret.

Thanks for your help. 

I tried Panda, MiniTool, then later Recuva and Stellar...no sign of the files.  Vaporized!

I'll be doing a better job of backing up now.  Good thing these weren't really import files.

And I'll be eliminating SupportAssist.

Thanks  for your help.  I learned a lot.

... I'll be doing a better job of backing up now.  Good thing these weren't really import files.

Hi dm48624:

Just FYI, when I do my "regular" weekly backups of C:\Users\<myusername> to an external USB backup drive I use a small utility called Karen's Replicator.  If you're interested see the groovyPost July 2021 tutorial at Backup Your Data on Windows With Karen’s Replicator.  Karen's Replicator as been around for years but still works well with Win 10 and Win 11 OSs - I just run a manual backup job once a week on my Win 10 machine and have the job configured so it mirrors all the changes in my C:\Users\<myusername> folder since the last backup. The backed up data is not compressed or encrypted so files can be easily accessed on your backup drive from File Explorer.

I have a relatively small USB backup drive so I've configured the Replicate Folder and File Deletions settings in Karen's Replicator so that any files deleted from C:\Users\<myusername> on my hard drive will also be deleted from the backup and sent to the Recycle Bin.  That gives me less time to recover any files accidentally deleted from my hard drive, but deleted files will remain in the Recycle Bin on my backup drive (where they can be restored) until that Recycle Bin is full and has to be purged.  I know my Recycle Bin is full when Karen's Replicator starts reporting an unusually high number (>100) of failed file deletions on the backup drive.

I've also noticed that my hidden folder at C:\Users\<myusername>\AppData\Local\Temp can accumulate a huge number of useless temporary files that don't need to be backed up.  I used to purge the contents of that temp folder before running my weekly backups but I eventually created a global exclusion in my backup job so that folder is ignored and isn't backed up anymore. PKCano's old Jan 2019 tutorial in the AskWoody forum at Karen’s Replicator – Basic file/folder backup/replication for Win7 and Win8.1 includes a good overview of some advanced settings (e.g., scheduled backups, file filters, global exclusions, etc.) that most users will never bother to use. 
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5487 * Firefox v135.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24090.11-1.1.25010.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.7.167-1.0.5160 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.4.0 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0 * Karen's Replicator v3.7.6

Hi dm48624:

Just an FYI that there is a related discussion in Priscilla Truesdell's 01-Mar-2025 topic After upgrade of Win 11, my old Win 7 games don’t run in the AskWoody forum you might be interested in.  According to EP's 04-Mar-2025 post # 2753000 in that topic:

 ... anytime and every time a feature upgrade or re-install of Windows 11 occurs, all Windows 7 games get removed and need to be re-installed after the upgrade or re-install.

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.5487 * Firefox v136.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.24090.11-1.1.25010.7 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.2.7.167-1.0.5160 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.4.0 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0