Files moved off desktop in Vista.....why?

[DrNic2032]

Tuesday morning my wife turned on her computer to find that her sidebar icons and all of her desktop files were gone. (Her computer was running fine on Monday night while she was doing some work in Excel) She turned off the machine and left it alone for me to look at. When I turned it back on tonight (I didn't get to it last night) the sidebar had come back but her files were still gone. After searching the computer I found the files in
Computer/Local Disk/Windows/System32/config/systemprofile/Desktop

Does anyone know why this may have happened? Do I need to worry about it happening again?

 

[milkweg]

Windows has an option for desktop icon cleanup so maybe that is what caused it. If you don't use the icons on the desktop for some time then Windows will delete them if you have that set to run. I always turn that option off.