mediasmith said:
Thanks for all of the great suggestions. Unfortunately, I have not found the files. Very strange since I never hit delete at any time.

The FileMaker reference was about loss of records within a FileMaker solution. Interestingly, I was aware of that post.

Unfortunately, I have to move on. I've started rebuilding my work. I only lost 4 days. I wish I could develop on my Mac. Time Machine is great! Windows has always been a marginal system to me. Just another example of strange Windows behavior.

Thanks again to all of ou for pitching in.
If you're really worried about how explorer is behaving, try using one of those alternative explorer shells. Many of them have extended controls which will allow you to force confirmation whenever you delete a file. You may even be able to customize that to only require confirmation on certain file types. I'm not entirely certain what you can and can't do, but I know some of them have advanced features.

Also, if you're looking for a better backup program you could look into entire system image backups options like Macrium Reflect. If you have the extra space on an external hard drive you can literally mirror your hard drive at regular intervals. Otherwise, there are many other backup programs that can simply create backups of specific locations such as your user folder on a regular basis. I'm sure if you asked you'd get some good suggestions.