Windows Phone Forensics - Practical Mobile Forensics - page 346

Windows Phone file system
The Windows Phone 7 file system is more or less similar to the file systems used in Win-
dows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. From the root directory, one can reach different
files and folders available on the device. From a forensic perspective, the following are
some of the folders that can yield valuable data. All the mentioned directories are located in
the root directory.
• Application Data : This directory contains data of preinstalled apps on the phone
such as Outlook, Maps, and Internet Explorer.
• Applications : This directory contains the apps installed by the user. The isolated
storage, which is allocated or used by each app, is also located in this folder.
• My Documents : This directory holds different Office documents such as Word,
Excel, or PowerPoint. The directory also includes configuration files and multime-
dia files, such as music or videos.
• Windows : This directory contains files related to the Windows Phone 7 operating
system.
Windows Phone also maintains Windows registry , a database that stores environment
variables on the operating system. The Windows registry is basically a directory that stores
settings and options for the Microsoft operating system.