MS forced an upgrade to 10. Restored to 7. Photos missing -- need help. How can I do this?

[Windows Central Question]

MS forced an upgrade to 10. Restored to 7. Photos missing -- need help.

Microsoft forced an upgrade to 10 on my husband. When he discovered his favorite game, MS Train Simulator, wouldn't run, he did the restore to 7 that was an option provided in the upgrade. Now he has discovered he has lost entire folders of photos. He is a nature photographer by hobby and has scores of animal photos. We found that file. What we can't find is a folder he called "my stuff" he kept on his desktop. There is an empty shortcut by that name on the desktop but it goes nowhere. I have searched the C drive using *.jpg and *.tif queries -- nothing we can't already see... We found and deleted lots of cookies that were transferred over from my husband's previous machine several years ago when we got this one... I also checked "recently used" and, of course, none of those shortcuts works, either. Does anyone have any other ideas for me? Thanks.

 

[Krystianpants]

Not sure you can get it back unless you made a backup. Typically the desktop is not a place to leave files even though some do. But it usually clears it out in scenarios like this. Pictures folder likely would have preserved it. Did he try running The simulator in backwards compatibility mode? I have not had any issues with old games or new games.

You can check event viewer to see if there's anything in the logs regarding it.