Windows 10 1809 Upgrade Randomly Deleting User Profile Data

Operating Systems & Open Source Windows
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MICROSOFT HAS PULLED THE UPDATE FOR NOW.

So… As you have probably seen in the news, the newest Windows 10 upgrade has a slight chance of deleting your data.

Now if you are going to be updating early anyways, I would suggest backing up all your data before doing so.

If anyone has already updated and uses the Windows file history feature, is the data still recoverable through that feature?

What to backup?


Anything valuable under the C:\Users\ directory as it seems to be the only one affect that we know of.

LinusTechTips TechLinked Video:

Useful backup and imaging software that could be helpful in this situation.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Please keep Windows bashing out of this thread, I want only discussion and information or methods regarding this issue only. Keep the discussion civil.

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Pinned until the 12th.

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“Documents and Photos folders.”
honestly I use folders on my desktop and not those for literally anything

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Did relocate these default folders to second drive, and benefits are that softwares default to these, like for example game saves go to Documents

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So remapped Default directories are pretty much at risk as well.

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Would think that relocated folders behave identically but who knows, and yes I’m 100% rekt if this thing happens :smiley:

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Make backups?

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@Novasty

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I’ll keep this thread opened, but unpinning it.

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image

While at it I did combine older backups and shave 60GB off from D drive, and would still have “1 293 Files, 144 Folders” kind of picture mess to sort

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I don’t use the documents or photos folders either, and yet my documents folder was 28GB. Took a look, and it turns out games and random programs use it to store data, preferences, and savegames. So I’d be pretty deeply bummed out if that stuff was deleted.

Of course I take regular backups with versioning so I’d be fine regardless. But this is a pretty big deal.

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None of my files seem to be affected. So I’m not sure what event causes the deletion of files.

I have noticed that it takes about 20 seconds to load my default “download” folder when I open it now. Despite being on an NVMe drive, and no other folders act the same.

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Things that are bound to happen when you’ve decided the release date for something a long time in advance.

It would be nice if the following settings were made available for every Windows 10 and not just Professional and upwards.

Windows10-nonbeta
Windows10-nonbeta.png822x350 9.8 KB

Edit: I also tried to download the 1809 ISO from Microsoft earlier today just to look at it, but even there they’re back to 1803. I guess I’ll give them a thumb up on that.

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Yup … they put a halt to the update for now.

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Rule number one: Never quality check…test it in production.

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Microsoft really ought to split its Windows product into two: A continuation of the current product that attempts to drag around 30+ years of legacy code and hardware and locks in a cumbersome error-prone update mechanism, and a new version that promises no compatibility with PC hardware/software older than X, verifiably leaves out all telemetry except the fact it’s been installed, market it to consumers at, say, $10 (many ppl do not trust “free”) and use it on all those non-PC gadgets MS wants so much to sell.

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uhhh

so do you just store everything in the root? or another drive? lol

The argument here is that those files are where most users likely store everything that is dear to them. For my users, it’s where our company lives. Thankfully I caught this ahead and had everyone do backups to external devices, but still.
Seems like every feature update is full of issues and I love it. This is what happens when you kill your QA departments in software. I think we can expect stuff like this with every feature update until they go back to real in-house testing that isn’t a bunch of users.

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The funny part is that this was extensively reported during beta testing months ago. Microsoft ignored tester feedback and released it anyway.

I mean, that’s OK for “the calculator should have more transparency in the number entry field”, but when you see a bug report “1809 deleted ALL my files!!!1!1!” that’s probably one you’re gonna want to check out.

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