Overview & help with drupal files and folders on Win 7

Question

I am a newbie. Please forgive me if this is a dumb question.

I'm trying to wrap my brain around what is Drupal and how it works.

I installed Acquia Dev Desktop successfully on my Win 7 computer. I want to make sure that I backup all files and folders, but have discovered that Drupal/Acquia is scattered just about everywhere on my hard drive. I found the following (where "Sam" is my Win 7 username).

• C:\Program Files (x86)\DevDesktop
• C:\Users\Sam\Sites
• C:\Users\Sam.acquia
• C:\Users\Sam.drush

Have I missed any locations? Why is everything not consolidated in one folder? It would make life much easier!

If this is not the proper forum for dumb questions please tell me a better place to post.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The confusion is probably resulting from things that differ from the Windows environment compared against the traditional multi-user LAMP environment that Drupal is usually built against.

To explain what those directories are in the order you listed them:

• The DevDesktop application code
• Your sites you're managing with Acquia
• Acquia application configurations
• Drush application configurations

This data is separated mostly to accommodate a multi-user environment. So that...

• All the data for the DevDesktop application is isolated so multiple users can use the app.
• The sites you manage are separate from other users.
• Your Acquia application configurations are separate from other users (e.g. your login info).
• You Drush application configuration is separate from other users (e.g. your site aliases).