Don’t Be a Statistic (Premium)

Most people don’t get the backup religion until they’ve lost something important because of a PC hardware failure or some other mistake. But this is a great example of when being proactive can really pay off. In other words, don’t be a statistic. Instead, organize your workflow in such a way that you will never lose anything important.

I’ve been meaning to write this article for months: in December, I started a blank document, poorly named “The Proper Way to Use a PC,” that was partially inspired by the then-new major update to OneDrive for Windows 11 that, among other things, added more folder backup options. Interestingly, I don’t actually use OneDrive to back up my Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, or Videos folders, but that’s only because I have my own system. What I have been doing, for years, is integrating OneDrive deeply into my workflow.

Anyway, what prompted me to finally write this article—and give it a much better name—was a Zac Bowden tweet I saw this morning.

“I went ahead and wiped a PC without checking what was on it and only just realized there was a super important file on there that I’m never getting back LOL RIP,” he wrote.

We’ve all been there. And I realize my comment to that tweet, “I don’t want to be that guy. But OneDrive” isn’t news to Zac nor is it particularly helpful after the fact. But that’s why I’m finally writing this now. So this kind of loss happen won’t happen to you in the future.

To be clear, I don’t care what cloud storage service you use. I assume Box, Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, and other services all work similarly, meaning that they integrate with the Windows file system and automatically sync their contents with the cloud, ensuring that your files are always available everywhere you want them and always up-to-date. I chose OneDrive, however, and I have good reasons: it comes with my Microsoft 365 subscription, provides ample amounts of storage, includes a Files on Demand sync feature that I find critical, and is super-reliable and performant.

I also don’t care if you use the built-in “Sync and Backup” feature in OneDrive for Windows 11, though that’s certainly one way to do it. (And, I know, the simplest and most obvious way for mainstream users.) Had Zac used OneDrive to back up his Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, or Videos folders on that PC he wiped, I have no doubt he would never have lost a thing, since it all would have been backed up to the cloud. I happen to use my own system, which I will describe below. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that you never store or work with files in any location that isn’t protected by OneDrive. (Or whatever service you use. I will just describe this as OneDrive now.) If you’re just backing up all your important folders to OneDrive, this comes pretty naturally: even those that use their Desktop as a sort of scratch space will have everything backed up all the time.

As a power user of sorts—or maybe just an over-thinker—I have my own system, as noted. This system includes using OneDrive pretty extensively, but only backing up/syncing a small portion of it to the PCs I use every day.

From an organizational perspective, I’ve added a top-level Apps folder next to Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos (and Personal Vault). This folder contains the installers for a small number of apps that I can’t otherwise install easily from the web, like MarkdownPad 2, which requires a very specific version of an SDK installer, and some other small things like a Registry shortcut that disables the Caps Lock key.

My Desktop folder is empty. I never use that for anything, and while I do use the Desktop on my PCs for in-progress work, nothing stays there. (When I do wipe a PC, I can easily see that its Desktop is empty before doing so.)

My Music folder contains a very small selection of music, but only so I can sync it when needed for screenshots for book work and the like. My actual music collection is in the cloud, in both YouTube Music and iTunes Match.

My Pictures folder is critical. This contains my Camera roll, some older home movies, my Photo collection, and some computer wallpaper. It’s never synced to my PCs.

My Videos folder only contains my Eternal Spring videos, just in case. It’s never synced to my PCs.

My Documents folder is where the magic happens. There are several core subfolders here:

• Book. This contains all of the contents of my current books, which include the Windows 10 Field Guide, Windows 11 Field Guide, and Windows Everywhere.
• Code. This contains folders for my various software coding projects, big and small.
• Work. This folder contains several month-based folders (2023-03, 2023-04, 2023-05, and so on) plus or minus three months or so of the current date that I use for archiving completed documents; when I complete working on a document or file, it goes in the current month folder. There is also a To-do folder for in-progress documents and files, with subfolders for things like reviews, articles series (Premium newsletter, Small Bytes, etc.), Eternal Spring (graphical assets, etc.), Hands-On Windows (podcast show notes), and so on. Put simply, Work is all about current work. Today, it’s about 1.4 GB, but that can vary.
• Work archive. This folder came about because it was getting unwieldy working with a single Work folder. So this contains all of my old month-based folders, arranged in year folders, from the past. There are literally year folders here for every year since 2012, each of which contains up to 12 month folders. Every 3-6 months, I’ll create new month folders inside Work and move old month folders to the appropriate place in Work archive so that they are, yes, archived.

Here’s what I do every single time I bring a computer up from scratch, whether it’s a new review unit or an existing PC that was wiped: I drag the Book, To-do, and current month folder (2023-03) as of this writing to the navigation pane/Quick access in File Explorer so they can be easily reached at all times. I sync the To-do folder (right-click, “Always keep on this device”) so that its contents are always available everywhere I work, even if I’m offline. I then go into Book and sync most of it minus the Windows 10 Field Guide folder, as I’m not actively working on that now. (I will move it to Work archive later this year.)

The total impact of these synced folders on my PCs is about 2.2 GB. That’s nothing.

But the total impact on my workflow is priceless, as I will never lose anything. Ever.

Let me give you a few examples of how I work.

Let’s say I’m writing a news story like the Microsoft Auto-Installs Defender Now If You’re a Microsoft 365 Subscriber story I posted earlier today. I created a new document in Word, saved it (to the Desktop, which is my default save location in Word), wrote it, posted it, and then closed it. I then moved the document—and the screenshot graphic I created for it—to 2023-03 where it will stay archived forever.

Or maybe I’m working on a book. I also spent part of today writing the Xbox App chapter of the Windows 11 Field Guide, for example. I had written part of that earlier on a different PC, but when I brought it up on this PC, it’s up-to-date and ready to go because it’s synced to all my PCs. It doesn’t matter where I edit these documents.

Let’s say I’m writing a laptop review. During the review process, I create a review document in To-do\Reviews using a template I created long ago with all the section headings, and I update that with observations over the review period. In most cases, there are collateral documents in there too, like a reviewer’s guide from the hardware maker and a video of the briefing. When I finally publish the review, the review document and those collateral documents are archived in my current month folder (2023-03 right now). (I also update a text document in the Reviews folder in which I track when I received each device and wrote first impressions and reviews).

You don’t have to be this detail-oriented. But you really should do what you can to ensure that you will never lose an important file. And I can’t think of a better way of doing so than using OneDrive or some other cloud storage service. It’s not rocket science. But it is important.