Yahoo! Messenger Archive Recovery
Yahoo! Messenger chat always offers a history archive for users' conversations. The archive is stored on a computer's hard drive, and automatically builds as more conversations take place. A user's archive is quickly accessed, and can be backed up to another device. If a hard drive crashes or the archives are overwritten, a backup copy will be the only way to recover the archives.
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Message Archives
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Any time a user has conversations on Yahoo! Messenger, the chats are saved to an archive on her computer. Archive files are generated automatically; users do not have to initiate their creation. Because the archives are saved to a hard drive, they are lost if the computer crashes or is wiped clean of data. As a precaution, it is possible to create a backup, which will allow a user to recovery her history if the computer crashes.
Archive Backup
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An archive backup can be placed on any external storage device that is compatible with a computer, such as a flash drive, CD or external hard drive. To back up the files, locate the archive folder on the computer and save it to the external storage. The backup copy will only contain those conversations that had already taken place when the backup was created -- future conversations would still be lost in the case of a computer crash unless another backup is performed.
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Locating Archives
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On all Windows computers, the first step to finding an archive is to press the Windows logo key and "R" at the same time to bring up the "Run" menu. On Windows Vista or 7 with 32-bit memory, search for "%LocalAppData%\VirtualStore\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\" and hit "OK." If a user is using Windows Vista or 7 with 64-bit memory, search for "%ProgramFiles%\Yahoo!\Messenger\". The message archives will appear, and can be dragged the folder to the storage device's icon on the desktop.
Transferring Archives
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Once a backup is created, Messenger archives may be transferred to another computer. It should be noted, however, that if one user's archives are transferred to a computer, any archives that previously existed will be overwritten. Overwritten archives are lost for good and cannot be recovered.
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