The AppData folder in Windows Vista is equal to the Documents and Settings folder in Windows XP. The AppData folder is also hidden in Vista.
To unhide this folder (and others), open the Folder Options in the Vista Control Panel, and on the “View” tab, change the option to “show hidden files and folders”, and click ok.
According to ComputerPerformance.co.uk…
“The key phrase is, change in location. Vista has a new Users Folder which replaces XP’s Documents and Settings. Within the new folder structure, Vista has a folder called plain ‘Documents’, which replaces XP’s ‘My Documents’ folder. The most important new subfolder is AppData. Also to maintain backward compatibility, Vista has shortcut links to the old XP folders such as Local Settings and Application Data.”
October 14, 2008 at 10:28 am |
Did did the job, I found my file under appdata/local/temp.
November 8, 2008 at 4:43 pm |
This tip really helped me. I thought I lost the APPDATA folder of another profile on my Vista PC. Thank GOD, I found it with this tip.
Thank you very much.
January 13, 2009 at 5:53 pm |
Can I delete the AppData folder? What would I lose if I do? Currently, it is clocking at 9 GB on my machine. What if I try to reclaim this space?
January 14, 2009 at 12:41 am |
No, do not delete the AppData folder, as it is the equivalent to Windows XP’s Documents and Settings folder. You can delete folders within AppData, just makes sure you know what you’re doing.
According to a forum post I found on http://tinyurl.com/9crshb:
“it is theoretically safe to remove all files from
AppData\Local\*\** folders. However I am quite sure you cannot delete it
entirely as Windows will complain that it needs
it (at run time).”
“In case the OP likes to free some space he should clean
AppData\Local\Temp\* and look out for some large folders to clean up
selectively.”
“The AppData\Local and
AppData\LocalLow folders are the folders where applications store their
“local machine only” settings. This means that these files are by
default not synchronized to the roaming profile share (usually only in
use for corporate users).
The AppData\Roaming folder contains the settings for the applications
(at least according to the guidelines).”
This sounds pretty tricky, so make sure double check before deleting anything out of AppData. If you insist on deleting it, backup your data in case something might happen. Though it sounds like Windows won’t let you delete it anyway. If it’s a hidden folder in Windows, that usually means it’s important.
January 14, 2009 at 12:51 am |
If your AppData folder is sitting at around 9GB, to me that means you have quite a few programs installed on your computer, and that it might be time to go through and do some “spring cleaning”, removing the programs you don’t need. Please refer to my lengthy response to a similiar question to this post if you want to delete anything within the AppData folder.
February 17, 2009 at 11:07 am |
Should the AppData folder be backed up?…and if it’s not, what do I lose?
May 9, 2009 at 7:41 am |
Can i move the AppData folder and all its contents to an external hard drive
June 20, 2009 at 2:48 pm |
I am not able to install adobe reader. It downloads ok but error message “ERROR 1606 Adobe Reader 9.1 Cannot access network location %APPDATA%.” The same error pops up when I try to uninstall the version that is on my computer even though it does not work. Any help would be appreciated.
July 5, 2009 at 9:54 pm |
When I try to download something new into my computer, it says “Cancled because it cannot locate the file %APPDATA%\. I can’t download anything new without that. Where can I redownload it? Also, I do not remember deleting it, so that is another problem.
July 6, 2009 at 10:27 am |
When I try to install iTunes on my computer, I get a message saying: “cannot access network location %APPDATA%\”. Can someone tell me how to resolve this error message so I can install iTunes? This also happens when trying to install other things too.
July 16, 2009 at 12:20 pm |
I keep getting this popup when I’m trying to uninstall or even re-install “The Shield Deluxe 2009″ (anti-virus program)& almost to the end of the process it comes up with
“%APPDATA%/”. I guess, some kind of way, the folder got lost. Can anyone help me with this?