if it worked properly, the idea is that you could do a complete reinstall of windows on the same or another device, and not lose most of your saved work (as a lot of things save in the user folder and its sub directories)
It would also need to save AppData/Roaming (and AppData/Local too maybe for good measure since lots of programmers are idiots and save stuff to the wrong folder).
I feel like the only person ever that this has actually worked out for, but I only even was in a position to need it because of another boneheaded Microsoft decision. My computer updated itself overnight and did a fresh install of windows 11 without my permission and in doing so, wiped my C drive totally clean. I would have lost all of my user data, but OneDrive had backed up my user folder correctly (somehow) and when I logged into my Microsoft account, it downloaded everything and it gave me back everything including game saves. All I lost was my downloads folder and the recycle bin, all of which was just trash anyway.
I guess I can’t complain too much, but if literally anything had gone wrong, I would have basically just lost all of the data I’d accumulated over the course of about 20 years.
if it worked properly, the idea is that you could do a complete reinstall of windows on the same or another device, and not lose most of your saved work (as a lot of things save in the user folder and its sub directories)
the problem is its implemented like shit.
It would also need to save AppData/Roaming (and AppData/Local too maybe for good measure since lots of programmers are idiots and save stuff to the wrong folder).
I feel like the only person ever that this has actually worked out for, but I only even was in a position to need it because of another boneheaded Microsoft decision. My computer updated itself overnight and did a fresh install of windows 11 without my permission and in doing so, wiped my C drive totally clean. I would have lost all of my user data, but OneDrive had backed up my user folder correctly (somehow) and when I logged into my Microsoft account, it downloaded everything and it gave me back everything including game saves. All I lost was my downloads folder and the recycle bin, all of which was just trash anyway.
I guess I can’t complain too much, but if literally anything had gone wrong, I would have basically just lost all of the data I’d accumulated over the course of about 20 years.