I have been using Windows Vista Ultimate on my desktop since about 4 months now and I have never experienced something like what I met a few days ago. Actually, I now use a laptop which I got in exchange for my desktop (I exchanged my desktop with my friend's laptop and installed the same Windows Vista Ultimate on the laptop). U know, I visited Microsoft's website and read an article which gave some measures which someone can take to speed up his Windows PC. One of them happened to running Disk Cleanup from time to time in order to clear some of the useless temp files which some programs put in your temp folder.

I have been doing exactly this and I have never had any problems at all. There has even been a time when I had mistakenly deleted my hiperfil.sys file by selecting for the disc cleanup util to delete the hibernation file cleaner, but that was not as sever as what I experienced recently.

Ok, this was what happened. I decided to run some optimization measures on my OS to make it a lil' faster and after running a virus check and running scan disk, I decided to also run disk cleanup. After the utility finished scanning, it detected that the per user queued error report was about 127GB in size. Now, thats very very surprising considering the fact that I don't even have up to that size in the laptop's HDD. I do have 80GB total HDD size in there and the partition that is carrying the Vista OS is only 35GB. So, there is no way an error report on a 35GB partition can generate something more than 100GB. Well, despite the surprise, I decided to go ahead and wipe these error reports not knowing that I am in for a bomb shell this time. It took it quite some time (a lota time so to say-more than an hour. thats quite surprising for a laptop of that config [core duo t2400 w/1GB or Dual Channel DDR2 667 and an 80GB SATA II HDD) to wipe all the error files in there. When it finally finished, I checked and to my utter amazement, found that my 35GB partition is now having a 26.2GB free space (whereas I had less than 10GB free space before and I know that I have installed quite a whole lota programs in there and quite heavy programs too[encarta student 2007, ilumina gold 2, adobe Photoshop cs3, dreamweaver cs3, fireworks cs3 to mention but a few]). WOOOW...I immediately rushed into my C:\ to check out things for my self and I kept on wondering...what kinda super compression is this. You know what I met?

Every damn installed program has disappeared from the program files. All i saw there was the default folders that come with the OS. Gosh...I went to Programs and Features (Add/Remove programs in Windows XP) and also found that every damn program has disappeared. I have never met this kinda experience since I started using computers and Windows. I tried to see if it is something which System restore can reset and guess what? my system restore has been automatically disabled. I knew there was nothing I could do to save the situation.

Fortunately, I am the kinda person that loves making backups of important files and folders and I had created a backup into another partition in the same HDD which was untampered with. I had to reformat and get the OS working again. Now I have everything reinstalled and working.

I am even scared to run the disk cleanup again less I meet the same misfortune.

Has anyone ever had this kinda experience with an OS? Whether Windows Vista or not?

Although i've never had this problem before during the time when i have used Windows (i don't own Vista, by the way)...
even if you had system restore enabled, its purpose is not to restore any of your personal files, its purpose is to restore system files.

Wow, I hope you've contacted Microsoft and had a good ol' moan at them. Where on earth did the figure 127GB come from? I've always been amazed at Microsoft's unique take on mathematics after XP informed me it had done 113% of a file upload. I always deleted the temporary files and all that manually on XP just becuase I didn't trust it to get it right.


I'm the same. I have piles of CDs, DVDs, pen drives and virtually every sort of removable storage medium (including a few 3.5" floppies somewhere) with various file backups on them. Its always a good idea to make regular backups, just in case something like this does happen.

I know what system restore is all about. Only that I decided to give it a trial to make sure that I didnt leave out anything and since it was the OS that caused this error.



I have not even contacted Microsoft concerning this. It never occured to me though. Now that you have mentioned this, I am heading straight to MS's website to give them the worse complaint ever.

windows vista should have been a good package , afterall microsoft took so many years to develop a product which finally competes with mac os 10,but unfortunalety microsoft doesnt learn from its mistake , i was planning to upgrade my OS ,but i guess now i will wait till futher security packs are given,.

I have had Vista since a couple months after it's debut (Vista Home Premium) and I haven't had many problems, but I always recommend Linux. In particular, Ubuntu is a very good distro to get. You can run it right from the CD to see if you like it and if you do, there is an "install" icon on the desktop. You can then easily set it up on a partition and even dual-boot (have both Windows and Linux installed and choose which to run).

I am not asking for recommendations about which OS I could use in replacement for Vista. Rather, I posted the problems I encountered with Win Vista Ultimate. I have used Ubuntu myself and i used it quite considerably. So, I know almost everything you can say about Ubuntu and most of the popular Linux Distros (Have used about 12 or more distros myself).

I aint saying that Vista is bad (BTW, I am still using it). Only that I cannot just figure out why it misbehaved that way. It has never done taht to me before (as I have been using it for almost 4 months now.).

I checked out at the Microsoft website for any links to where I can yell out my complaints to 'em, but the damn site aint got nothing to offer. Too bad..and I mean...really too bad.

Microsoft should do something about their customer support. It is a complete mess.

Lol, a 113% file upload. It would be really fun to make a webpage or a post where all these sort of funny microsoft things get posted.

It has almost been half a year since the release of vista... not counting all the time it was in beta stages... And it still has not improved. I wonder how long it will take for it to be usable, I guess we are going to have to hope for a year now. Me.... I will stay with xp, maybe until the next windows comes out. Unless I get a new pc and it comes with vista, but that wont happen anytime soon.

I have vista on a brand new computer and it works fine. I havn't seen any of the stuff you are getting on ultimate either.

Is your computer made for vista?

Mine was made with it in there.

I never use disk cleanup though it is kind of stupid...

Any computer that has the required hardware configuration for running Windows Vista should be able to run is very well. My laptop is using a Core2Duo T5500 processor, with 1.00GB of DDR2 667 and with 80GB of HDD space and an Intel 945GM Northbridge chipset. I see no reason why this hardware config wont run vista properly.

This is not about hardware configuration 'cos I have seen people who are running windows vista with worse hardware config. This is all about an error that was generated by the OS.

I have tried to contact MS because of this. All to no avail.