Created new username and lost docs from My Documents

I changed the domain to log onto my computer. I had to create and use a new username since the old domain was at my previous job. Everything went fine besides losing all my documents in My Documents. I have tried to browse the document and settings folder of the old usernames but the documents do not appear there. Do you have any idea what happened and how to resolve it. Will rejoining the old domain fix this problem? Is Windows hiding the documents for security reasons or are the documents deleted forever?
The My Documents folder should exist under the Documents and Settings folder on the C-drive. However, it does not have to! At your old job, the My Documents could have been redirected from the domain policy and forced to another location. If the location was on a network share, well then, your hopes of gaining access to the folders again is slim to none. However, the folder could have been redirected locally somewhere. Have you searched all of your hard drives for a document that you know should be there? You could load the old profile into the registry (Use RegEdt32 ? Load Hive into the HKEY_USERS primary key). Look in the SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell FoldersPersonal. It should say %USERPROFILE%My Documents. If it has been redirected (depending on how it was redirected) this may point to a different folder.

This was first published in July 2001

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