Where are my logs?

No not wooden logs, contest logs.

Field Day 2009 was great. (photos HERE) The club did well, but not as good as I would have imagined we could do. The DVK setup was a miserable failure. I had to resort to manual phone operation. But still, that aspect did not prevent any contacts. We got the contacts we got (524), and didn't 'lose' any, band conditions were miserable on 40M. More about that in another post...

So it's 2:PM or so on Sunday, and I am shutting stuff down and packing it up, I go to save the log to a USB flash drive, and nada. N3FJP Field Day logging software saves it in the Program Files (i86) folder. So I go looking for them. Nada. Nothing. WHERE'S MY LOG FILES?!?!

Apparently, starting in Vista, Microshaft started 'caching' files in an obscure location. Apparently M$ doesn't trust us to do things normally, so they need to do things abnormally for us. Seems like there is an AppData folder somewhere that contains all sort of 'user' files that we aren't trusted or even allowed to access. It is called 'Compatibility Files' in Microgeek talk.

In my opinion, virtualization is another way for Microsux to say "I know something you don't know"...

The official word on this is that starting in Vista, the rules are that if you don't have explicit (by requesting) elevated permissions to write to C:\Program Files, the system lets you think you are writing there but actually redirects (virtualizes) your writes elsewhere. (or so Scott Hanselman sez...)

On the surface, this sucks in a huge way, especially for ANYBODY in the "where are my files" kind of way. As far as programs on my system, there's a number of "mal-behaved" programs that are getting their writer redirected to the "Virtual Store." Of note are MSN Messenger, the new Nero, and FireFox. I think it is the main reason Win 7 was destroyed (went FUBAR) by Directory Opus 9 a week before Field Day. On a 64-bit system the implications are even worse...

Hanselman also sez:

The other really bad UI issue is that there's no way to get to the compatibility-based Virtual Store from the common file open/save dialogs. The same redirection CAN happen with apps that try to write to registry in HKLM, so watch for that also if something "goes missing."

I can see how hard they're working to make Vista more secure while still maintaining extensive backward compatibility. I haven't had any apps (other than one Java app) bork under Vista yet, but things like this Virtual Store will be confusing until new minor releases of apps with a modicum of Vista-awareness come out.

So where are my logs? When you open Windoze Explorer and you access a folder that has 'virtualized' files, a toolbar button appears that is labeled 'Compatibility Files', click on that button, and voila! There are your files. You can treat them as if they actually exist where you see them...