Desktops are beautiful and should not be used to save data or documents

Many computer users including computer scientists and system administrators often find the desktop appealing to save data or documents - work in progress, images, mp3, scratch notes, downloaded documents from the internet, etc. Most times such documents are saved on the desktop temporarily but could be permanent if the user does not have a policy guiding against saving files on computer desktops and similar directories in their local hard drives. Some times files are properly classified and saved within directories also on the desktop. The instinct is normally and stem from: "I shall move it over to the approved or desired directory"; "Let me save it and classify it later."; "Not sure where to place this, need to review the rules before proceeding" and many more similar reasons for the user having a well defined rule concerning saving files on the local drive and desktop in particular. Computer users, who do not have such policy in place, often unaware of the danger of such action, find the desktop near because it save time and additional mouse clicks (My computer, before selecting the appropriate drive), to save files and folders. This appeal, often make such desktop untidy with files and folders littered across the screen.

Desktops are personalized settings - display, shortcuts, etc peculiar to a user account, when the user logon to a computer system. Note that each time a user logon to a computer system using a user name and password that has never been used, the computer creates a new profile for the person. With this approach, Windows uses it to personalize the user preferences and ensure that the user preferred looks and feel are kept safe for the user for subsequent logons.

In as much as this is tempting for a user to assume that each time - "I logon to my computer system, my profile loads and my saved files and folders are available within reach on my desktop", here are more cogent reasons why desktops should never be used to save files and directories:

1. Once a user start storing folders and files on the desktop, the size of the user profile grows quickly and this growth often lead to frequent computer system freezing and consequently crashes. In most cases when such crash occurs, the computer system recovers without problem on reboot but on some occasions, disk scanning, using windows recovery disk and other toolset will be needed and this is where the problem lies as the computer may recover from such crash (with saved files on other sections of the hard drive and software program safe) but a new profile would have to be created for the user, replacing the existing. This implies that files and folders on the old desktop are gone, out of the reach of the user but not yet deleted from the computer system. This by no means would require some expertise to recover and usually performed by computer professionals. Such valuable data or documents though recoverable but could be corrupted in the process. The use of advance techniques and toolsets may be the only means of complete recovery. 
2. In a networked environment where profiles roam, the user keep saving large amount of data on every computer s/he logon to, there by using up disk spaces that would have been used for other purposes.
3. In an environment where files are shared without using a collaboration tool, each user saving a copy of the same file or folder on his/her profile end up saving multiple copies of the same file on the same computer.
4. Saving of files and folders on the desktop often make such desktop untidy and unattractive to use.

Recommendations
Every establishment or individual should endeavour to have a policy on where to save files within a computer system. There is need to define a rule well in advance so that each new document to be saved can easily be placed within an appropriate class. This classification would not only aid easy storing and location of documents but would ensure that files are not duplicated all over the computer system.

There is a need to avoid saving your personal documents or data in computer system reserved sections for storing your personal preferences. Our recommendation is to avoid saving personal file or data under "Documents and Settings" directory or its sub directories, which of course includes the desktop. The recommended practice is to have a separate data partition, which could be a mapped drive on a networked environment or just a different disk or logical drive of the same disk. Once you have your data or documents safely saved, you may then create shortcuts on the desktop for easy access of your data or documents. This approach has an advantage in the sense that it is easy to perform regular data backup. Also, if you computer system should crash and impossible to recover, it will mean just re-installing the operation system without the data partition being affected in any way. The re-installation process can easily be performed or managed by any one without the help of an expert.

On a final note, it is important to mention that even though your computer system may have crashed and it seem that you might have lost some if not all your documents, that your documents could be recovered. Technically speaking, it is possible to recover lost data after a computer system crashed and even deleted files when the recycle bin has been empted so long that such valuable data has not been overwritten by other pieces of data. It is even possible to recover data on a formatted or damaged disk. Note that a computer user should not hope on data recovery as it is an expensive business and can be performed by only specialists in that field.

In conclusion, efforts should be made to set rules for saving personal data or documents on a computer system. A drive or section within you disk should be devoted for personal data storage. Data or documents should never be stored on computer system reserved directories for storing your preferences.

About this Article
This article is a contribution of Education Programme of Multi Dynamics Nigeria Limited to the public. It is aimed at enlightenment and creation of Information and Communication Technology awareness. All articles contributed by the Education Programme are available on this website. Enquires, reviews, response regarding this article should be directed to info@multi-dynamics.com