Windows Live photo gallery deleted my whole desktop!

I just tried the new version of Windows Live Photo Gallery. I double-clicked on a photo on my desktop and noticed that Photo Gallery added the desktop folder to the gallery. I didn't like it and I wanted to remove Desktop from the list of folders that are part of the collection.

I right-clicked on it and chose "Remove from collection" (I'm using the Italian version so the menu choice might not be exactly spelled like that) but then all the icons on my desktop disappeared!

And there is no trace of them in recycle bin! I managed to do "Undelete" on desktop's right-click menu but it restored only one file. Both user's and shared desktop have been deleted!

How can I restore the desktop folder? As far as I know, System restore doesn't help with deleted files, but I can try for sure!

Fortunately, I never hit "remove from collection" on my real pictures directory :|

usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ

Posted 2010-10-23T13:00:18.503

Reputation: 3 733

Answers

Do System Restore to restore your system to a time before this happened.

harrymc

Posted 2010-10-23T13:00:18.503

Reputation: 306 093

As shown in my previous comment, I didn't need to restore EVERYTHING, but just the affected directory. Anyway, your answer is correct so +1 and MARK. Thank you, harrymc – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ – 2010-10-23T13:23:30.953

Are you sure that everything was realy deleted? I';ve had problems with icons dissappeareing on windows 7. Try right clicking on the desktop and making sure that view->show desktop icons is checked.

AndrejaKo

Posted 2010-10-23T13:00:18.503

Reputation: 16 459

I'm sure. Anyway I managed to restore everything. The system restore idea was correct,but I didn't need to restore everything. Just right-clicking on the desktop folder from user folder and restore a previous version of it. Thanks to you anyway. – usr-local-ΕΨΗΕΛΩΝ – 2010-10-23T13:20:03.723