Files deleted with the October Upgrade

[Pieere]

Just read in How To Geek! The new October Upgrade can delete your files! So Microsoft has pulled it for now! Don't download or Install!

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

I have 8 PCs upgraded.  I did notice that on some of the PCs in the remote location had Start Screen shortcuts removed but no other issues.  My local PCs did not have the Start Screen icon issue.

[DJW]

I have not noticed anything deleted as of yet anyway.  I downloaded the first day on one laptop and on a 2nd laptop on the 4th day with no issues.

 

Dennis

[RV_]

Six systems no deleted files that I know of. I did quick checks of pics and docs.

The damning thing is that this file deletion "feature" was found by the Window's Insiders and they missed fixing the file deletion bug before releasing to the public.

Backups are essential these days and there are no perfect backups for all.

I got by this bug without losing files, but I'm resetting my four systems that are Windows Pro to delay updates from now on. The Voyo mini PC and my SH's all in one are Windows home, so can't be delayed. She's double checking now but she noticed nothing in the past week. Just for hers it may be worth a one time $99.99 upgrade fee to Professional.

[RV_]

I backed everything up, and gave it a try. Painless for her newer system.

So only system left with Windows home is my hundred dollar Voyo Mini that started out with Windows 8, then I did the free update to 10 home, free from Microsoft.

So now I am setting all of them to hold off installing updates for 30 days each. and let my old Mini PC with 32 bit Windows, 2GB Ram, 64GB SSD, be the immediate update guinea pig, along with millions of others.

However, if any update fixes an in the wild ongoing attack I'll do them immediately.

I don't know how they do it but it was too easy.

[Pieere]

just was wanting to notify you all of what I read on Google News and How To Geek! Sure don't like going trough the process of resetting the computer!

[docj]

My Dell  laptop didn't lose any files with 1809 but it has developed some instabilities.  Every couple of hours it loses its wifi connectivity and the only solution I have found is to reboot it.  I noticed that Dell posted a couple of updates that were timed to the 1809 rollout, but nothing has yet been posted by Dell or Microsoft to fix the problems caused by 1809.

[TheDuke]

Just read the PC World blog on what Microsoft said happened.

"

• 1. KFR redirected the folder to a different drive. If a user added a secondary or external hard drive and created a new “Documents” folder, then redirected the old folder to the Documents folder on the secondary drive, a user could encounter the data-deletion bug.
• 2. If a user used KFR to redirect a known folder (like Desktop, Documents, or Pictures) to OneDrive. That process usually asks the user if they would want to move the files in the folder to the cloud; if the user said no, the Oct. 2018 bug could erase the data."

I think what the 1.  KFR means is that if you have a smaller SSD drive C: and and HD drive D: and moved C: Documents, Music, and Pictures etc to the D: drive that is when the deletion occurred. I would have been one of the users with deleted files. 

I don't use the Cloud so the second one wouldn't have affected me, I think. 

 

 

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

I think it has affected some phones that run Microsoft firmware.  Our company phones have lost Excel and Word docs.  I open 1 doc daily on my phone and it went missing.  Others in our company have had the same issue.

[Pieere]

Read yesterday that it has been fixed!

[Tom_M]

I found this utility recently:

Windows Update Blocker

Basically, it's a simple way to disable "Windows Update" and "Windows Update Medic" services. It should be helpful especially for people running Windows 10 Home. I'm not sure whether this is a permanent fix. I ran it about a week ago and the services are still disabled. When you want to do an update you run the program and enable the services before you check for updates.

 

[RV_]

Tom,

With Windows 10 Pro you just go to to updates and security from the start button/Settings/Updates and Security/Windows update/Advanced Options. Once you are running pro that last screen changes to this:

As you can see with this screen shot from my Surface Pro 3, the "Pause Updates" option is added. All I do is toggle that switch on to not get any updates for up to 35 days. Since I'm waiting from a few days before the second Tuesday of the month, which gives us plenty of time to make sure any new updates with bugs get exterminated before they get on my machines. Let the folks with Windows home be the guinea pigs, and there will always be millions.

For folks running Windows 10 home, there is a vendor with working upgrade licenses to Windows Pro. I bought one cheap which was a ripoff and eBay refunded immediately. I then tried another that was a legal key and finally got my wife's Lenovo All In One upgraded to pro. So now our Surface Pro 3 and 4 and Dell Venue 11 Pro tablets, and my Dell 2720, are all Pro and set to delay updates until they have been out for a few weeks and bugs fixed. Email if you have questions. Email is on my website listed below in my sig block. Or you can upgrade directly from Microsoft for $99. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows?icid=CNavSoftwareWindows&activetab=tab:upgrade

Tom's idea will work too. Upgrading to Windows 10 Pro makes holding off on updates a simple toggle switch that is not there with Windows 10 home. Lots of other features to Pro too.

For the price today of one 37 gallon fill up of gas or diesel, you can upgrade to pro the easiest way with the Microsoft store. I paid a lot less with the risk of a ripoff. I got one refund immediately, and the second one worked fine.

The important thing to remember is to get all updates after a couple of weeks because the malware writers are reverse engineering the bugs Microsoft fixes on each update cycle.

 

[Pieere]

 

Deleted

[TheDuke]

So who cares?

[Pieere]

deleted

[TheDuke]

This is a topic about MS October up date, not about switching to or from Win 10. If you want to let the world about how smart you are, why don't you start a new topic or in your case email directly. 

[RV_]

Pieere,

By all means do that if it blows up yer skirt! If you are going to switch for the update issues you've done it the right way in that you have actually learned the Apple system before talking about it here. I remember Kirk posting derogatory comments here about MS updates and getting an Apple system from his son in every Windows thread. I don't have any experience with Apple beyond using the original Macintosh in 1985 during a break in service (82-86) for my SIU Industrial Engineering CAD/CAM course. MS did not get the mouse until the early Windows unstable Versions. I much preferred MSDOS because the Air Force had contracts with computer suppliers requiring DOS until Windows for workgroups 3.1~ 1994, but our base used MSDOS until 1995, When Windows 95 became the standard at work. I also had Commodore 64s and a 128 system at home along with my IBM clone MSDOS system. So I had to spring for Windows 95 and Office 95 to be able to carry unclassified work home. I also had an AST notebook I used for my satellite TV biz in Europe, and in 1995 founded the first private ISP buying bandwidth on Deutsche Telekom. At the time we also opened a computer shop in our office suite because the Germans and the military Exchange stores were always six months behind the current tech.

So needless to say I stuck with DOS until 1995, but the much better DRDOS 6 and didn't use a mouse on my home IBM clone until Windows 95.

Since I've avoided the Apple computer systems and phones because I liked building and tweaking both hardware and the operating systems. In 2005 Apple switched to the "Evil Wintel" hardware but charged more for it. And we had to pay more for the same hardware, as well as pay for OSX on purchase and again for a legal copy of Windows. Or we could just run Windows on one.

I suppose your way is similar to using Linux in that old PowerPC Apple machines before they went to Intel and OSX would be safer than Windows XP.

Now, if I were to quit Windows over updates, which is absurd for me, I'd likely go to a desktop version of Linux like Mint with Cinnamon, the last one I tried. The only reason I tried it was to load it onto an older Windows XP machine as a test so I could load it on the XP machines folks did not want to throw out during the heyday of Windows 7.

I found that any modern Linux has much the same requirements as the Windows boxes used to load Linux on. That version on the XP machine was unusable it was so sloooooow. It was click a button, then wait literally several minutes for it to open whatever, then a few more minutes for the new screen to be up.

I suppose one could stop at some point but when I griped on a Linux forum they said no modern OS could run on ten year old equipment. Made sense and so my Linux experience is over after a Debian Raspberry on a Raspberrt Pie first ever I pkayed with and sold after it was too slow for me too. Great for automation but I'm not the least interested in building automated systems at home or in an RV when Smart systems are available off the shelf and interface with my Android, Windows, and Amazon Fire tablets, Fire TVs, and Alexa Echodots. We've four echo dots, five Fire HDX and the newest 8" and ten inch HD tablets, one Kindle Paperwhite next to newest, and the the Windows three Pro tablets, two Windows All in ones, and one mini PC desktop still running strong with just an Intel Atom Z3735F, 2GB RAM, 32bit, 64GB storage, and just 5inches square and 1/2 inch high : https://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/10/intel-atom-z3735f-based-voyo-mini-pc-features-64gb-storage-a-10000-mah-battery/.

All need the monthly updates. No biggie with cable Internet to do all of them almost simultaneously.

I could make do with just a good Android tablet or Fire tablet, and any of the wireless kb/mouse sets that share the same USB receiver and get rid of my Windows systems entirely. Yes I had to learn Android with my phones. Because of all the Android phones, there are Android Microsoft versions of all the MS Office programs as Apps, which can be used on Amazon Fire devices with some simple jail breaking. But that makes the now security by obscurity Amazon Fire devices vulnerable to the hordes of Android malware.
I want to be able to get software and apps freely and not worry about hardware issues. I have come full circle and will be selling all the extras, Once I decide which of the six Windows systems and six Fire tablets I no longer want to play with.

But I get Duke, the constant griping about Windows updates with the comment you are leaving Windows and going to Apple does belong in its own thread.

You can even do a poll on how many folks actually moved to Apple in the modern Apple era after they switched to Wintel hardware.

I am a two OS person too. Android and Windows. The Amazon Fire OS is a modified Android derivative system that uses only the Amazon app store without jail breaking. I get updates for my Android phones from Motorola about every three or four months, and for my Fire tablets about as often. Without jail breaking the fire tablets you can't use the Google Play Store. Jail breaking is easy though because you don't have to root the Fire:

https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/

But again, on a Windows thread let's stay off complaints and suggestions that Macs are a better solution. Since you already have the exact right hardware for Linux on your fairly recent Windows box, Linux can save you a lot of learning curve and new or used hardware purchases.

The best thing about Linux is that they have versions now that use onscreen desktops just like Windows:

https://itsfoss.com/windows-like-linux-distributions/

Scroll down to see the Mint Cinnamon desktop and comments.

You have a lot more choices than just Windows or Macs. I'd go with a new OS I can use on my current equipment. I don't think Linux runs on touch screens like my Windows All In One desktops and tablets, or my Amazon touch tablets. But it will run on Apple equipment. Whatever you do, do keep whatever OS you're using up to date security wise.

Good luck!

Microsoft dropped the phones on us and that was the only reason we went back to Android. Three day battery life on ours when new, now little over two days two years later.

So we buy and use what we want. But for the current apps and programs,

[Pieere]

Deleted my comments! Have a Wonderful Blessed Life!

[TheDuke]

It's been just about two weeks since the Oct 2018 update has been available. Even though I seem to have the criteria be one of those whose computer might loose fills, ( ie SSD C:\ drive and D:\ data drive), I decided to  do the update since a fix has been issued. 

I did do backups of both the OS and all my data files.  I don't have exact times, as I was watching a Football game (go Vikings) will doing the update. 

The download for one file was about 179 mb according to the update screen and 4 or 5 other files. There was only 1 reboot and that total time was about 30 to 45 minutes. After the single reboot, I looked at updates and saw that the other files were now ready for install. Those took only a few minutes didn't require a reboot. 

Only problem was that 2 of my USB 2 drives didn't work but the USB 3 did work. I did a few searches to see if I could find a solution but then decided that maybe the simple choice of going to Device Manager and doing a uninstall for both drives. Voila, both drives than came active. 

 

 

[Pieere]

Deleted