[Ubuntu PA] Ubuntu-us-pa Digest, Vol 17, Issue 6

[Brian Stempin]

I think that the problem at hand is a bit more shallow than this...

Typically when you talk about a Windows user's data, you're referring to
their profile.  Their profile contains all (or most) of their app settings,
the user's registry hive, their documents, etc.  The challenge here is to
find a way to keep the user's documents without grabbing all of the other
stuff that I just mentioned.

Some will argue that grabbing only certain folders (ie, My Documents, My
Music, Desktop, etc) will grab the user's documents without grabbing the
"cruft" as we've been calling it.  The problem is that (a) some users may
store their data elsewhere (ie, some older Microsoft games save their data
in the "Program Files" directory), and (b) some of the stuff in the
"cruft-free" folders may not actually be cruft-free.

I think we've come to a general consensus that we can (and should) aid the
user in backing up the folders that we designate to be "reasonably
uncrufted" and that this particular user-base will most likely store their
data in these designated areas.

I think at this point, the discussion should probably be answering the next
line of questions, such as:
How do we aid the user with the actual backup?
How can we better assure ourselves that all of the data we want is in the
places that we're looking? (ie, user education, prompt a warning, etc)
Is there any way that we can programatically avoid any cruft that we *may*
come across?
Last but not least, do the answers to these (and any other questions) assure
a reasonable amount of safety for the user and their data?
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