Just like the title says, I had to do a system restore, after I restored back to last Friday I LOST my source files and some other files I made in the CK over the last few days.

Scared the crap out of me, I spent an hour searching my hard dive and the recycle bin but they were nowhere to be found.

The PEX files were still there, but the source files were gone.

I reversed the system restore (win 7) and the missing files came back.

WTF?!!

I thought NO documents were suppose to be effected by a system restore!
Did this happen because this files are buried in the steam games aps directories?

I need a drink....

steam deleted my skyrim.exe once. I was really confused for about 15 minutes, because the launcher.exe was still there. So the launch window would pop up, I'd click play, and then...the launch window popped up again O_o.

That's why I always diable System Restore... it never works the way it's supposed to; even YEARS after Micro$oft implemented it. But it may revert the drive (or certain folders) back to a previous state - not just system files. In any event, I always keep an extra hard drive (or partition the main one) and copy off my important stuff to it periodically. Oftentimes that's the drive/partition I actually work in (like my 3DSMax work folders are on my d: drive).... since a million things could go wrong with Window$.

But Steam deleting then replacing source files goes without saying - if those sources are Vanilla (and you edited them). If a Steam 'verify content' deleted your custom sources... it would just be another example of why I always back up EVERYTHING before doing Steam updates (and other potentially hazardous actions; such as installing a new mod... it could overwrite your stuff too).

None of that helps you already losing your stuff though. There ARE some apps on the market that are very effective at undeleting files, some work fairly well unless you've written over the blocks where that data was kept. I haven't had a need for this in years, so I can't recommend an up-to-date one that works... sorry.

er... no as I said I got back all my files after I reversed the System Restore.

I have never had this problem with SR (for over a decade) in fact it has save me several times. The problem was my custom source files were deleted. I am wondering if it is a issue with cloud computing were the SR saw these files as aps or EXE or some other type files OTHER than DOCUMENTS because of the way they are now handled by freaking cloud computing.

I do back up every few days with 3 different locations, but I guess I need to do it more often with the steam files.

Yea.. I know what you said; I was just pointing out another instance you may encounter specifically regarding your source files (the Steam updating). Since SR unexpectedly deleted something, isn't that not working the way it's supposed to? OEM/dev's intentions and what a consumer expects are often two different things.

But my ultimate point was that SR will eventually let you down; apparently this is your first time in over 10 years. I use Norton Ghost... always works and it has so many better features than SR. After making an image, one can remove the services & TSRs so it never runs in the background like SR does; not to mention the extra time SR spends at boot up & shut down.

I dunno how SR handles files or why... don't really wanna know as I will NEVER use it again. I just remember how to fix it when the inevitable happens.. heheh