Normally I love Windows Vista. Some of my more Linux-loving friends have gone as far as to call me a Microsoft apologist. Whatever. Just so you know, though, Vista isn't all sunshine and lollipops. In fact, Vista's version of Explorer just tried to kill me.

There I was, innocently removing an unneeded directory and its contents from my projects directory. Happens every so often, although usually only with directories I have under version control to begin with, as was the case this time. Let's listen to this tale of wonder and woe:

Me: La la la, selecting the folder… Pressing Shift-Delete, clicking OK, and away it goes! Thanks Vista!
Explorer: No problem, best buddy Chris!
Me: By the way, I'd like to copy this folder into the parent of the one I just told you to delete. Okay?
Explorer: Uh, could that wait a moment? I'm kinda busy taking care of this business.
Me: Sure! Good thing I right-dragged that, I'll just click the Cancel item on the context menu.
Explorer: I'm confused! Oh wow, this folder you got open right now looks tasty… OM NOM NOM
Me: Uh, what are you doing?
Projects directory: Mein leben! I am being eaten! IEEEEEE!!!!! *Vanishes*
Me: Ack! My projects! I've not backed up lately! *HEART-ATTACK*
Explorer: Mwahahaha! Now, I'm off to Kill All Humans! Exunt.

Fortunately Windows Vista has Windows 2003's Volume Shadow Copy feature (known in userspeak as "Previous Versions") and so our play has an Act II:

Me: What? I have survived! Excellent! But what of my projects?
Volume Shadow Copy: Hey, buddy! I can provide you with your projects again!
Me: But… But, you're nearly two days old!
VSC: Hey, take it or leave it, bub. I'm doin' youse a favour here.
Me: Fine. While I don't like the terms, I recognize that I haven't a choice.
VSC: That's the spirit!
Me: Explorer, you better restore this nicely. Or else I'll have to get medieval on you.
Explorer: Sure thing! I submit! I was only joking about the "kill all humans" bit too, you know?

The End.

The moral of the story: Hourly (or better) backups of your projects folder is a good idea. Even better is keeping everything in version control.