Backing Up Your Stuff Part 5: Where Is It #1?

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Friday, 25 July 2008

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By:Richard Lowe

I don't know about you, but I love to collect cool downloads off
the internet. I've got thousands of stationary files, desktop themes and ICQ
skins, as well as more thousands of screen savers and wallpaper files. Most
of these special files are stashed in obscure locations which makes them
difficult to back up and a pain to restore.

However, if you know where the various applications store their data files,
you can make copies of those to your hearts content. Programs such as Second
Copy and InSync are perfect for this job, although in a pinch you can simply
drag the files to your writeable CD drive.

Outlook Stationary Files

Something that I love is outlook stationary. I think it great to receive a
cool email with a nice background, perhaps a graphic of some kind and some
cool sound. I know my wife likes to get an "Love" email from me with, say, a
gigantic heart and some gentle romantic music.

In fact, it's very simple to build up a huge collection of stationary files.
There are tens of thousands of them available for installation all over the
internet. The problem is: where the heck are these things installed?

The answer is simple:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedStationery

Stationary files are always in this location (I have searched very hard and
have never found a way to change this directory). I guess that the drive
letter could change if you installed the operating system somewhere other
than the C partition, but I have not tried that out myself.

Each piece of stationary consists of one standard HTML file and a number of
additional graphic and sound files. By far most themes consist of the single
HTML file, one graphic and perhaps one sound file.

Desktop themes

Beginning with the "Plus" pack that was an optional add-on to Windows 95,
Microsoft introduced the concept of desktop themes. These are very cool in
that they allow you to change your wallpaper, sounds, icons, cursors and a
host of other things using a simple text file.

Themes are very easy to create, and they have become extremely popular.
There are hundreds of sites totally dedicated to them, and there are tends
of thousand of individual themes available on every conceivable subject.

Normally, themes are stored in the following location:

C:Program FilesPlus!Themes

Note that the location is stored in the system registry file (if you don't
know what that is, then you probably don't need to worry about it). This
allows you to modify, if you are very daring, the disk and directory where
the theme files are stashed.

Each theme consists of a single text file with a file type of ".theme", and
a number of associated icon, graphic, cursor and sound files.

ICQ Skins

The most popular instant messaging platform is called ICQ (I-Seek-You).
Someone very creative decided the ICQ interface was very boring and created
ICQ-plus. This add on allows you to change the look and feel of the ICQ
interface. Virtually everything can change - the buttons, colors, graphics,
fonts and text. These changes are called skins.

ICQ skins are stashed here:

C:Program FilesICQPlusSkins

Each skin is self-contained in a zip file (which can be unpacked using
Winzip if you so desire)

About the Author

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets.
This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet
profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
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