back to article On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me: A file-munching run of DELTREE

Folk keen as mustard to get their hands on the Windows 10 October 2018 Update have reported files being mysteriously deleted by the upgrade. It was all supposed to be so much better this time around. Fewer features, more time spent fixing bugs, and yet here we are. Hot on the heels of the issues afflicting Intel display audio …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

    those who have downloaded it voluntarily. These are, presumably, those who know a few things about computers and who will have maintained some form of backup.

    Will this still happen to the hapless home users who will have the update happen without them asking for it ? These are the ones who have probably forgotten to do a recent backup, or who never realised that it was a good idea to do so.

    One wonders if this is part of the MS push for users to keep a copy of their files in the MS cloud - with all that that implies?

    1. Spazturtle Silver badge

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      The update has already gone live to the release branch, even though this was reported by insiders on the fast and slow test branches.

      So to answer your question, Yes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      Enthusiasm... Windows... correct.

      en·thu·si·asm

      : strong excitement about something : a strong feeling of active interest in something that you like or enjoy

      Although I especially like 1a...

      "1 a : belief in special revelations of the Holy Spirit"

      There is even an example given in Merriam-Websters using a Microsoft engineer, wow...

      "Example:

      He seems to lack enthusiasm for the work he's doing."

    3. TheVogon

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      Worked just fine for my family and I on 5 pretty varied systems so far.

    4. Daniel von Asmuth
      Windows

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      Windows enthusiasts, you rarely get to meet one in the flesh. Guess this goes to show that if your Windows 10 is running half decently, you should never change its software.

      1. Waseem Alkurdi

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        Windows enthusiasts, you rarely get to meet one in the flesh.

        A former one here, whose first computer ran Windows XP and 98 in dual boot.

        No longer one though, after Windows 10 came out, when I moved out to Linux for good.

        So there, they do exist! ^_^

      2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        Maybe they are windows actvists, rather than enthusiasts?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

          Enthusiasts left long ago, all that remains are users (ranging from difficulties with spelling their name to still using windows because MS own them).

      3. Yes Me Silver badge

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        "... if your Windows 10 is running half decently, you should never change its software."

        It would be lovely if that was allowed.

    5. J. R. Hartley

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      I have a "System" partition and a "Work" partition.

      Amiga style. The sensible way to do things. God I miss those machines.

      Then when Windows inevitability shits the bed every 12 months I can just nuke the entire System partition from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        its not available on WSUS yet. that could have been far funnier. By funnier i mean a fucking nightmare.

        1. Mr Humbug

          It went live on WSUS then was expired pretty quickly. I only saw the expiry appear on my server

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        I have a "System" partition and a "Work" partition.

        Change "partition" to "physical drive" and physically disconnect the Work drive before attempting upgrades.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

          My laptop only has room for one drive ( sore point DELL agent put in writing that there was room for a second one). So it's partitions, + automated backup to the main computer over simple networking and the occasional external back up. Main computer has 3 physical drives, with partitions for C: stuff, documents, wife's documents, family documents and photos. One just contains OS images. One has complete backup of data from the main drive and the networked laptop. Oh and there's an external HDD connected by USB with a backup of all the backups. Just in case. And automated backups.

          I consider this the minimum. I also have some stuff in various free cloud accounts. Just in case. Family photos, that sort of thing.

          Information is too precious to leave to computers.

          And having the original data in a folder/partition that isn't buried away does make keeping backups that much simpler.

    6. Mark 85

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      You hit it dead on. For those non-techies who don't know a techie, they're screwed for the most part. I've had calls from "friends of friends" over the last year wanting me to fix their Win10 problems. No can do.

      I am surprised that there haven't been class action suits hitting Redmond hard over these borked "updates" as they call them. I call them borked "tests".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "You're doing very well. Please be advised that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol..."

    7. big_D

      Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

      I'll be very interested to see how widespread the problem is.

      I'd updated a dozen machines before Microsoft pulled the patch. None of them were affected.

      They ranged from a first generation Core i7 laptop, through Xeon E5 based VMs, Skylake and Coffee Lake laptops and a Ryzen 7 machine. All were updated using either Windows Update or WSUS (we have a pool of test machines, which get the update pushed to them, before the general population gets them).

      I've stopped pushing updates to that group now (disabled the update and stopped moving test machines into it) and I am waiting to hear where the problem lies / the fixed update.

      1. rmason

        Re: This is affecting the enthusiasts ...

        That mirrors our experience. WSUS\test group\rollout.

        We haven't had any of the reported issues on the test group, just the issue we always seem to get with "feature updates". Namely it works on around 50-85% of machines, the remainder get stuck at "downloading, 0%". They will do this until you manually intervene, usually requiring the manual update tool.

        To us it feels like if the update fails to work the first time, it will not work automatically. Even if you do the whole stopping services and deleting updates routine. IF I update 5 laptops (via WSUS) normally one will fail. This is for feature updates (the biggies like this one) only. It never happens for regular updates.

        Hardly a shock though, these "feature updates" are often 2GB plus so almost an OS reinstall rather than a feature change.

    8. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hopefully this will finally result in a 'Confim to update' switch/button.

      What a complete fuck up Microsoft.

      Hopefully, this will result in a 'Confirm to update' button for those that regularly check for security updates "seekers", when a new feature update is offered, a compromise would be to show such a confirmation for the first month.

      It seems to wipe the contents of the "Documents" folder, other folders Downloads etc, seem intact when it fails to update due to lack of disk space.

      You lose the contents of the Documents folder even when you're left on 1803 and no 1809 update was installed but was initiated i.e. Update failed, leaving you on 1803.

      ** Be careful folks **

      NB. This is with OneDrive "Off" (never used - before and after) and the new 1803 Storage management features "Off", using local username/password login and not linked to a Microsoft Outlook account etc. A very basic setup.

      Honestly Microsoft, you need an App that can print out a list of all the internal states of the Toggle Switches because they have in the past (Aniversary Update), being "back to front" in their operation, on being off etc.

      1. big_D

        Re: Hopefully this will finally result in a 'Confim to update' switch/button.

        It seems to wipe the contents of the "Documents" folder, other folders Downloads etc, seem intact when it fails to update due to lack of disk space

        Yes, that seems to tally with my initial suspicion, that lack of space might be the problem.

        1. Pedigree-Pete
          Meh

          My Documents, My Downloads, My Pictures etc.

          I was taught back in DOS days that my data should be at least 2-3 folders below root and ideally not the dumbed down My??? stuff MS introduced.

          So now my stuff is in C:\MyStuff\various logical folder names below, like a filing cabinet.

          I think I had a couple of machines that were partioned, OS and Apps on C: default data storage folders on D:

          Not perfect in a disk crash situation but that's rare IMHO and not an issue if you do that other thing that was drilled in, back in the day. BACKUP. PP

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: My Documents, My Downloads, My Pictures etc.

            Agree. Main hard drive\data partition\documents folder\user's named folders

            And equivalents for photos etc

  2. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
    Windows

    Not a good look here.

    Won't affect me, as I've never used the Documents folder. Never trusted the thing right from the get go on Windows 95.

    Except - oh wait - loads of programs stuff their settings files in there with no option to change the location (Visual Studio being a prime offender).

    Just lovely, Microsoft. Windows 10 is just the gift that keeps on giving, huh?

    1. Charles Calthrop

      Re: Not a good look here.

      why have you never trusted the documents folder?

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Not a good look here.

        Personally, I don't mistrust the Documents (or Downloads, etc.) folder, but I certainly don't use it. It's incredibly inconvenient in just about every way.

        Although, these reports do raise questions about how much these folders can be trusted.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not a good look here.

          >Although, these reports do raise questions about how much these folders can be trusted.

          The question is "How much can one trusts the whole user's folder?"

          A while ago, I came up with a simple idea: stuff everything under my user folder, creating folders and files as needed. This is exactly what one would do under Linux and macOS, so my idea was not exactly novel.

          The fun part came when - as an experiment - I decided to simulate a couple of scenarios:

          1-Windows had to be restored, leaving the user's files in place

          2-A backup taken with Windows own tools had to be restored due to "data loss"

          In both scenarios I would have lost files. Either because anything different from the standard "Documents", "Music", "Videos"... was lost, OR because SOME of the folder I added to the user's directory were missing from the backup, but not others.

          So, in the end, I use a different drive for everything that is not OS related. I have also ended up zipping most of the software that I would normally have installed as the majority of it can happily run without the need of a reinstall.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not a good look here.

        Back in the days of Win95/98, one of the recovery options was to reinstall Windows over the top of the existing Windows install; a great way to replace damaged or missing files and get the system up and running quickly.

        However, without warning, it deleted the entire contents of every OS created "My" folder; so My Documents, My Music, My Videos etc.

        So, like others, I have NEVER trusted my data to those folders since; they go in user created folders, preferable on an entirely different disk.

        1. bombastic bob Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Not a good look here.

          I just hated having "My[whitespace]Documents" as a directory name, I always rebelled and used "C:\documents" (or similar), a _directory_ name of my own choice, to store things.

          Besides, whatever dim-bulb "decided" to include white space in directory names deserves a CLUE-BAT.

          [yes I operate in a command shell much of the time, especially in POSIX systems and Cygwin]

          As for 'auto-delete your files' on up-grade... it's worse than RANSOMWARE!

          [and WHY are they screwing around with your data directories ANYWAY?]

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Facepalm

            Re: By design

            "I just hated having "My[whitespace]Documents" as a directory name, I always rebelled and used "C:\documents" (or similar), a _directory_ name of my own choice, to store things."

            Oh, they probably got a gold plated clue bat. OS dependant file structure/directory name = customer lock in = sales paycheck. :/

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not a good look here.

          "However, without warning, it deleted the entire contents of every OS created "My" folder; so My Documents, My Music, My Videos etc."

          You put *your* files into a directory clearly labelled 'my documents', stored on 'my computer', not yours?!

          1. Waseem Alkurdi

            Re: Not a good look here.

            And I swear to God that Windows XP Tour markets these My* folders as a feature. The female tour voice blabbers something to the effect of, "Windows XP makes it easier to organize your files. Put your music, letters, and videos into the convenient My {Documents, Pictures, Videos} folder.}

            * Just "taken" the nostalgia walk in a VM today for a laugh xD

            ** Except that the My* folders were there before XP came out.

            1. bpfh

              Re: Not a good look here.

              ‘My’ folders were there before XP, certainly.... but not XP and later’s attempt to make it a view in the file system and attempt to hide the real directory path. Their first public attempt to push out a file system as a database...

      3. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Not a good look here.

        why have you never trusted the documents folder?

        Why would anyone think that placing all their data on the same volume as the OS was a good idea? And for those old school command line users, trying to find files under the C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents folder is a bit cumbersome. Relying on defaults may be convenient in most cases, but there have been too many times that doing so has led to my being bitten that I am willing to blindly trust that it will all work out OK if I do. Once or twice is really all that took.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Not a good look here.

          "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents folder is a bit cumbersome."

          To be fair, many Linux installers create /home/%username% as a standard and NOT as a separate slice/partition. The option is there of course, but many users just choose the default which hangs everything off /

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Not a good look here.

            "but many users just choose the default which hangs everything off /"

            An installer should default to not doing this. Unfortunately some distros do default to this but a distro aimed at newbies really shouldn't. It might be OK for a quick and dirty test system that's going to be torn down again or to get some idea of how big the various main subtrees are for sizing the real install but otherwise the distro should at the very least work out how big the root partition should be, default to that and make the rest a /home.

      4. has IT

        Re: Documents folder

        Cannot speak for OP, but for me I never trusted the folder because it was longer than 8 characters. Back in the day when Windows 95 came out they encouraged you to put documents in the My Documents folder.

        When you enhanced* to DOS and did a simple directory listing the folder appeared as MYDOCU~1 or the like. This made finding the folder programmatically a nightmare. Following on from the nightmare, any code that was written to copy or backup your files may have caused mangling of the filenames you selected, or missed them outright.

        In my mind, the original purpose of the My Documents folder was to show the world that Microsoft had finally caught up with the likes of Unix and could now happily support any filename you wanted while still elegantly being backward compatible. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It wasn't until NT, and for the majority, Windows 2000 till Microsoft could actually claim long filename support.

        This whole theory was given much more weight when the My Documents folder was renamed Documents. I mean really, who cares who's documents they are, you just want to know they are documents and not programs. Also it would be good it they could just stay where you left them and not be deleted randomly.

        *"Dropping to DOS" is an example of the double speak people will use to cover their attempt at perception manipulation for increasing sales. You were never "dropping" to DOS, you were invoking a shell and getting real work done. Looking at Microsoft shell support today, it feels like the world wasted 20 years unnecessarily clicking OK.

        See a video of the Xerox Alto in action for what computer systems were based on. Windows and Mac were developed by "copy what you saw there" and not like Xerox, iterate with purpose and unlimited funds until success.

        Herein lies the problem, copy what you saw being done vs invent and continuously develop a working solution to the problem. Copying and forgery are probably the worlds third oldest professions, so this cat and mouse game is not going to change.

        When there is was only one telephone in the world there is not a lot of point having one, it takes many to make the system work and be of value to anyone. Thus, a bunch of Altos were made and plonked on desks the world over. They were all connected by a new fancy thing called Ethernet.

        This led to fierce competition between players of the Alto program Maze Wars. This competition and code level cheating caused consternation for the authors as they were getting complaints about cheating. This led to the invention of secure source code repositories and obfuscated executables.

        Necessity is the mother and without some need invention will not occur. It is not until you encounter someone who will not play by your rules that you need to enforce rules or alternatively just play another game.

        MYDOCU~! is a game we should not have played, but who were we to know and what could we have done to stop it anyway? Was the 8.3 limitation was imposed by costs and computational limitation at the time DOS was written, or was it a function of hiring ex Xerox employees and this is the rules they were used to?

        In the 1990's I must have typed ATZ a thousand times. It wasn't until recently that I realised that I was connecting with the ancient and well organised people at the dawn of the computer age. So as a shout out to the wonderful people who were at Xerox and the made everything up to and including the Alto:

        ATTENTION!

        RESET.

    2. Captain Scarlet
      Windows

      Re: Not a good look here.

      Ah you use Microsoft Briefcase to store you files then?

    3. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Not a good look here.

      As with Mr/Ms Sausage Factory. I've never stored anything voluntarily in a folder that is addressed indirectly while buried away inside the OS' folders. One that combines "documents" ( my stuff) with "Settings" (the software's data). Furthermore, I don't particularly want my stuff on the same partition as the OS. I always make a data partition,That way a reformat or corruption by the OS has a good chance of leaving my stuff intact.

      And yes I do automatic backups. Various. To a different drive and to an external drive/machine shared folder.

      Anyone who trusts precious data to a system folder would probably leave their wallet on their beach towel and go off for a swim.

      1. Brian in Seattle

        Re: Not a good look here.

        Wait, have you seen my wallet?

      2. jgard

        Re: Not a good look here.

        Jeez.... there is so much ignorance and misunderstanding on display here. It's almost embarrassing to read. I know it feels great to support each other's anti-MS confirmation bias, but so much of this chat is juvenile and demonstrates that many of you don't have a clue. Repetition of the same old mis-truths doesn't make em any truer.

        @Ian Emery - 'Back in the days of Win95/98... it deleted the entire contents of every OS created "My" folder' - you do realise Windows is not the same OS as it was in 1998? Heard of NT by any chance? That's like saying my Mk1 Golf had awful electrical problems - there's no way I'd EVER trust a Mk7.

        @J. R. Hartley - what are you doing to your machines that makes Windows shit the bed every six months? The only time I have ever had to blat Windows since the NT kernel arrived was my own fault. I downloaded Chrome through a dodgy ad while not paying attention (and half drunk) and unwittingly installed a root kit. Even then I could have fixed it, but it was a new build so was less hassle just to flatten it.

        ... and then: "So, like others, I have NEVER trusted my data to those folders since", well I have been in IT a long time and have never seen or heard of Windows deleting my docs contents. My current company manages at least 25,000 Windows desktops - I would hear about it if it happened and it doesn't.

        @Havin_it - The C drive root is most definitely not world-writeable by default - you need to have admin rights, and overide UAC - WTF indeed! And any difficulty applying inheritance / propagation of NTFS permissions is doubtless due to the user - this is an elementary and very simple task.... "As for AppData, I've never grokked the philosophical distinction between Local/LocalLow/Roaming". I suggest you read more, the info is there - MSDN is your friend. Also - there is a checkbox or cmd switch on all good backup software if you are struggling to back up sym links.

        @Terry 6 -"I've never stored anything voluntarily in a folder that is addressed indirectly while buried away inside the OS' folders. One that combines "documents" ( my stuff) with "Settings" (the software's data)". What on earth is wrong with addressing indirectly? I expect you distrust sym links in Linux too? Hey and if you don't like indirection I have bad news for you - it's at the heart of computer science without it, without it you could do diddly squat (see Ken Thompson/Dennis Ritchie et al). Also the folder isn't buried away in OS folders ffs!

        And for everyone that talks about my docs being a shared area for stuff and settings - IT ISN'T!!! App developers put data where they like - that is not down to Windows OS guys, not in the slightest. Again MSDN is your friend.

        Look, I agree with a lot of stuff on here - My docs are a pain in the arse, Windows 10 phone home stuff isn't good at all, lots of other shite MS do is crap. But talking rubbish does not help your case. It's like listening to the Brexit lot bang on about uncontrolled immigration when EU law actually allows us to control it very tightly, we just choose not to.

        1. Philip Hodges

          Re: Not a good look here [gnawed electricals]

          Any Mk Golf can have electrical problems if it is parked in the open where a stone marten can chew through the wires and hoses.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not a good look here.

      "Except - oh wait - loads of programs stuff their settings files in there with no option to change the location (Visual Studio being a prime offender)."

      No they don't and no it doesn't. They get stored in the AppData profile folder. Not my documents.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: Not a good look here.

        "No they don't and no it doesn't. They get stored in the AppData profile "

        A lot of stuff gets stored there, but I have several programs that put configuration in documents/$program_name/config or something. They usually don't give you any other option. Yes, they're bad programs, which is why I try not to use them. No, I don't have much choice not to.

        I don't really have a problem storing data on the same volume as the OS, which simplifies things if I'm using a single-disk machine, like most laptops. However, since they made documents, etc. into libraries, which means that there are several things called documents that are not necessarily the same thing, I've not liked to use them. I mostly use folders of my own choosing, which also helps as I spend a lot of time in the command line when I'm on windows.

        1. cutterman

          Re: Not a good look here.

          "A lot of stuff gets stored there, but I have several programs that put configuration in documents/$program_name/config or something. They usually don't give you any other option. Yes, they're bad programs, which is why I try not to use them. No, I don't have much choice not to."

          Agree. I really HATE this. "MY Documents" folder should be for just that, no Appdata, which belong in the apps Program folder, not mixed up with my Documents. And no you can't change this. Fuckfuckfuck.

          On all my machines I have one drive C: (for the OS and Programs (System)) and another (usually mirrored drive, usually D: ) for Data. Fucking Windows stores all sorts of its own and apps crap in "My Documents" and I fucking HATE it!

          Mac

          1. joed

            Re: Not a good look here.

            OTOH, having some of app data files in "my documents" is not such a bad thing once you realize that some of software settings is as valuable as the files one creates using the software. The annoying part is how some of apps mix the intent of Roaming and Local data folders. Add registry entries to the mix and the lack of consistency makes for really messy transitions between machines/systems. Still, I'd rather take care of of this myself than have a cloud service provider do it out "goodness" of their heart (or more likely just an interest of every aspect of my offline activities).

            1. Paul Shirley

              Re: Not a good look here.

              If it was just storing settings in os drive folders, no problem, even in Documents. I've got multiple apps storing log files in them, sometimes 100s of megabytes of them, thumbnails, temp files and all sorts of other non critical shit I don't need filling my ssd or the daily drive images. Win10 is bloated enough without this.

              1. TheVogon

                Re: Not a good look here.

                "If it was just storing settings in os drive folders, no problem, even in Documents. I've got multiple apps storing log files in them, sometimes 100s of megabytes of them, thumbnails, temp files and all sorts of other non critical shit I don't need "

                None of that gets put in My Documents though. It's all in various folders under AppData. Or under \ProgramData\

            2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

              Re the my folders

              at least XP put the MY this and My that , all within the main My docs folder , now they are all one level back and mixed in with the other profile shit

          2. Havin_it

            Re: Not a good look here.

            If you're on a multi-user machine, ensuring "your" stuff is insulated by the correct file permissions by default is valuable: I tried making a "personal" folder under C:\ (which last I looked is world-writeable by default - WTF?!) but ensuring the permissions were set to propagate properly was a screaming nightmare. Windows permissions editing ... shudder.

            I stopped using [user]\Documents when ransomware became a thing, as this would likely be a default target. The weird symlinking shenanigans to which Documents and its ilk are subject make them problematic for doing backups as well.

            As for AppData, I've never grokked the philosophical distinction between Local/LocalLow/Roaming, and it's pretty clear app devs don't either. I never know which one I'll find an app's settings in, let alone why. Some even use more than one of them(?)

            At least the FOSS apps can be relied upon to ignore all of them and create a nice predictable [user]\.[appname] folder :)

            1. Richard 12 Silver badge

              Re: Not a good look here.

              "Roaming" will get copied to other machines that the user logs into when on a domain that supports roaming profiles.

              "Local" and "LocalLow" aren't copied to other machines and in many cases aren't backed up either. Eg these are where Temp really lives.

              Thus Roaming is user-specific settings and data, and Local is settings and data specific to a particular machine and user - eg cache.

              Plus there's appdata for machine-specific but not user specific settings & data.

              I don't really know the difference between "Local" and "LocalLow". The latter is apparently the "low integrity" version, however I've yet to find a Microsoft doc saying what that actually means.

              1. TheVogon

                Re: Not a good look here.

                ""Roaming" will get copied to other machines that the user logs into when on a domain that supports roaming profiles.

                "Local" and "LocalLow" aren't copied to other machines and in many cases aren't backed up either. Eg these are where Temp really lives.

                Thus Roaming is user-specific settings and data, and Local is settings and data specific to a particular machine and user - eg cache.

                Plus there's appdata for machine-specific but not user specific settings & data.""

                No, the above are subdirectories of AppData. And are not under "My Documents".

            2. JohnFen

              Re: Not a good look here.

              "If you're on a multi-user machine"

              If you need a multi-user machine, it really shouldn't be running Windows at all.

          3. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

            Re: Not a good look here.

            ". "MY Documents" folder should be for just that, no Appdata, which belong in the apps Program folder, "

            Dats coz they are your settings , not blanket settings.

            p.s. arnt you glad they chucked a whitespace int the programs folder as well? brill!

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Not a good look here.

          "I don't really have a problem storing data on the same volume as the OS, which simplifies things if I'm using a single-disk machine, like most laptops."

          Disk != Volume. You can have multiple volumes on one disk, even in a laptop which is why this laptop is able to have / /boot /usr /usr/local /opt /var /tmp and /home as separate volumes. That means that even a reinstall that completely overwirites anything which houses OS stuff leaves both user files and anything locally installed alone.

      2. jsepeta
        FAIL

        Re: Not a good look here.

        Apparently you're unfamiliar with Native Instruments. Hero Lab, Avid Pro Tools, Novation, oh hell the list goes on and on. Many DAW software companies store their settings in the My Documents directory.

      3. tiggity Silver badge

        Re: Not a good look here.

        VS stores plenty of files under "My Documents" (not settings per se but ...)

        e.g.

        Visual Studio 2017 dir contains hefty directories such as

        "Backup Files" (yes, they should be backed up anyway but ...)

        "Code Snippets" (pointless)

        "Templates" (Quite important if you want toi create a project from a template, as that's typiocally the easiest way)

        (It has other dirs, those are just the most useful ones that could be irritating if wiped)

    5. John Miles

      Re: as I've never used the Documents folder

      Pretty much everything I do on home PCs ends up on a different physical drive to the OS - makes it easier to share on multi-boot and much less risk when re-installing

    6. jonfr

      Re: Not a good look here.

      I did learn this lesson years ago. I keep everything on a different hard drive for security reasons.

      1. Danny 14

        Re: Not a good look here.

        documents has its place. we redirect everones documents and desktops (and appdata) to network locations. These netowrk locations are on a stretch cluster for resiliency and backup up.

        if people stored their files willy nilly then we would have chaos of course.

        the gpo for redirection sorts out permission on the base network store automatically so we dont need to do that with scripts etc.

        yes i know home drives can be used too.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Not a good look here.

          "These netowrk locations are on a stretch cluster for resiliency and backup up."

          Like KCL did?

    7. onefang

      Re: Not a good look here.

      "Windows 10 is just the gift that keeps on giving, huh?"

      In this case they seem to be taking, not giving.

  3. Halfmad

    I always admired the royal marines, the SAS and the SBS

    Now I take my hat off to the brave men and women around the world who bravely take on early adoption of Microsoft patches.

    May the farce be with you.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: I always admired the royal marines, the SAS and the SBS

      they take the hit so we dont have to.

  4. Spazturtle Silver badge

    A bit of a nuisance but not a major drama, with modern file transfer speeds it should only take a few minutes to copy the files over from your pre-update backup.

    After all, nobody would ever ignore best practice right?

    1. matjaggard

      Yes, but have you seen the prices Amazon charge for retrieving from Glacier. Presumably I can just forward the invoice to Micro$oft

      1. 2Nick3

        "Yes, but have you seen the prices Amazon charge for retrieving from Glacier."

        How long do you expect the update to take to install? If your pre-upgrade backup has migrated to Glacier by the time the update finishes you might need to update your hardware!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "have you seen the prices Amazon charge for retrieving from Glacier"

        Glacier is an archiving system, for files you rarely, if ever, need to access, but you need to keep - it's not what you use for short-term backups, and for quick restore of whole disks.

        1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

          Re: "have you seen the prices Amazon charge for retrieving from Glacier"

          all my docs are stored on (and accerssed and used from) a nas , much more central nad convenient.

          any of the windows machines in my house can self dsetruct at any time and no data lost .

    2. Snowy Silver badge
      Facepalm

      [quote]After all, nobody would ever ignore best practice right?[/quote]

      In the same way no one would release an update without testing it first and taking notice of an problems said testing flagged up

      1. Spazturtle Silver badge

        Oh they did test the update before releasing it, and they did take notice of this bug.

        They just didn't patch it before releasing it.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "They just didn't patch it before releasing it."

          "To dispatch": "To ship without patching known problems"

        2. Alumoi Silver badge

          Oh they did test the update before releasing it, and they did take notice of this bug.

          It's not a bug, it's a feature.

      2. slartybartfast

        It's a software companies favourite practice. Release software and get the early adopters to be the free bug testers.

  5. Lee D Silver badge

    Yeah, you remember that "we'll push updates automatically and you won't get a choice in the matter thing"? Yeah, that's when I stopped upgrading.

    I can only imagine why that was, and what I could have foreseen happening in that respect, and what I said would happen when they stop doing in-house testing and start using the world as a guineau pig.

    P.S. Not the first Windows 10 upgrade/update that I've heard of that just trashes the user profile. I have at least three documented cases of people upgrading from 7 or 8 to 10 from the forced update and then discovering that there was nothing left in their documents folders.

    And, of course, they didn't get a chance at a rollback or to say "go away, so I can backup everything in my own time" before it was foisted upon them.

  6. chivo243 Silver badge
    Windows

    I want some!

    What ever they are taking over at M$, I want some for my free time! Too bad they seem to be on it during work hours ;-{

  7. Alister

    On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

    Aaaaaaaaaargh!

    Stop it with the Christmas theme, OK?

    It's barely October.

    No Christmas themed headlines until December, FFS!

    1. stiine Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

      Have you not wached Anthony Bourdan's No Reservations, apparently Christmas season starts in October in the Phillipines.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

        Was in a hotel in Brum a couple of weeks back and there was already a small Xmas tree by the lifts. :-(

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          Re: hotel in Brum

          To be fair it probably has been there since last Xmas...

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

          "Was in a hotel in Brum a couple of weeks back and there was already a small Xmas tree by the lifts"

          Mince pies sighted in the local Co-op about the same time.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

            "Mince pies sighted in the local Co-op about the same time."

            With an expiry date long before Xmas Day :-)

            1. ChrisC Silver badge

              Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

              ""Mince pies sighted in the local Co-op about the same time."

              With an expiry date long before Xmas Day :-)"

              All the more reason to eat them... In my world, there would never be a time of the year too early for eating mince pies.

    2. JohnFen

      Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

      While this Christmas ditty was not enough to trigger this behavior in me, I have for years had a strong policy that if a store has put up Christmas decorations or plays Christmas music before (US) Thanksgiving has ended, I no longer shop at that store. One holiday at a time, please.

      That policy replaced my old one -- no Christmas outside of the month of December (one month should be long enough to celebrate ANY holiday) -- but the old policy made me rapidly run out of places to shop.

      Bah, humbug.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

        My Thunderbird filters automatically delete any emails with the subjects; Christmas, Xmas, season's greeting, etc. Which I activate in August, where it does good work until I might turn it off in Mid-December

      2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        @JohnFen

        Due to the fact that my wife and daughter are fanatical XMas enthusiasts, I have ruthlessly enforced my own policy in the house - with success - so that, from January to the end of October, the official name is The Holiday That Shall Not Be Named.

        Because if I didn't, I'd be hearing XMas carols in June. In my own house. Just. No.

        I like XMas very much ; in December.

        ONLY in December.

      3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

        "One holiday at a time, please."

        The local supermarkets have Halloween and Xmas stuff in the "seasonal" aisle, but on opposite sides.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

          So where's Diwali?

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

            No idea. I've noticed differing clothing styles and food in shops when I've been in Bradford where there's a large population descended from the Indian sub-continent. Maybe they have a seasonal Diwali aisle in the supermarkets there. Are there special presents/food/ornaments bought in large numbers for Diwali?

            Gatesgead has a large Jewish population and I've seen some shops with window displays for hanukkah although I'm not so sure that's as big an event in terms of consumerism as Xmas is.

            I suspect that it's because in Western countries, Christian holidays have been taken over by the marketing departments of various corporations so we see the massive consumerism effect and ignore the religious bit, especially those of us who are not religious but still enjoy a party and piss up. Despite what the Daily Wail might have us believe, there's not really much of a market selling to non-Christian religions in a predominantly Christian country because the numbers are very small and the adherents are more likely to honour the religious beliefs than the consumerism side of it.

            1. Terry 6 Silver badge

              Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

              Bradford is mainly Bangladeshi I think. It was when I was a student there and though that's a long time ago ( the lectures were in Latin) I don't think it's changed that much. Those "Indian " curry houses are usually Sylhetti owned.

              You don't say where "local" means for you. In London and Leicester there are certainly large Hindu populations, including those expelled from Uganda by the evil Amin. And to them Diwali is the festival of light. In some ways surprisingly similar to Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of light. And for all of these, in their areas there's a big seasonal sales opportunity

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

      And right now, only 80 days left! Book early to avoid disappointment...

      1. onefang

        Re: On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me:

        There was an article recently on the Aussie ABC web site, about Christmas seeming to start earlier and earlier. I didn't actually read it.

  8. a_yank_lurker

    The gift...

    Bloat10 is the gift that keeps on abusing. I wonder way any upgrade would touch the known user files. If there is not enough space, do not upgrade. It sounds like the downgrade is not checking for available space correctly and thus deleting files to create enough space to install without advising the user. A rather criminal move by Slurp.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Holmes

      Re: The gift...

      It sounds like the downgrade is not checking for available space correctly and thus deleting files to create enough space to install without advising the user. A rather criminal move by Slurp.

      You've got a small problem though. If this were the case, it would be a systematic, and eventually, observable "feature". A tester could try with 10 GB free space under C: in a VM, take a snapshot, then keep going down, restoring the snapshot every time the upgrade does nothing, until s/he hits the "delete point". Then, sueball. Then, profit!

      Would M$ like another sueball?

    2. Paul Shirley

      Re: The gift...

      I've watched a previous update check for space then later abort and rollback when it ran out of space. Which was better than the last update that wiped the os drive partition entry and thankfully tried rebooting to the same partition before trying to overwrite it. Recovering a partition being massively faster than an image restore of a bloated Windows.

  9. earl grey
    Mushroom

    No thank you

    Just - No thank you.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi
      Angel

      Re: No thank you

      You're not being given a choice here.

      ... I'm afraid we can't do that ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No thank you

        "But I have clicked on the red X thingie???"

        1. Richard 12 Silver badge

          Re: No thank you

          These days there is no red X.

          Hateful piece of GUI redesign.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: No thank you

            "Hateful piece of GUI redesign."

            GUI redesigns are inevitably hateful.

  10. dnicholas

    Thrilling

    Windows updates are exciting, just like getting electrocuted exciting

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Thrilling

      I tend to update my machines 1 at a time. Starting with one that I can roll back easily from an image ( stored on an external drive). And since I don't have any professional stuff on my PC anymore, but all my data is saved in all sorts of places, I can afford to play with it. I wouldn't have been so cavalier when I was working for a living.

      1. dnicholas

        Re: Thrilling

        Well unfortunately I'm still working but I'm fairly cavalier. A robust backup solution is essential even for home PCs. At work I've 12TB of mission critical stuff on hot, cold and off-site medium.

        I've about 3TB of photos of the kids I can't part with, only a fraction printed. My home backup solution is in some ways more elaborate than my enterprise toys :p

        1. Craig 2

          Re: Thrilling

          "My home backup solution is in some ways more elaborate than my enterprise toys :p"

          Indeed, it would take an ELE impact to destroy all backups of my photos!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Abandon Hope all who upgrade

    This seem even more than the usual POS from Microsoft.

    I am so glad that I'm not in support any more.

  12. Anonymous South African Coward Silver badge

    Will WSUS stop Bloat10 from upgrading itself?

    Time to make a slight adjustment to our backup policies then.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Not WSUS (M$ might force an upgrade on you, in theory), but a firewall that doesn't run on M$ gear, which only allows access to WU domains every X weeks or on demand should suffice.

  13. Anonymous South African Coward Silver badge

    What will day 4 give us? Much more joy? And hopefully a good expletive-laden rant from Bombastic Bob... :)

  14. Stuart Halliday

    Windows update checks the C: for errors. Finds the user profile directory damaged (people will just switch off their computer instead of shutting it down) and repairs it.

    Therefore deleting many files.

    End of mystery...

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      How can a directory and all its contents a be damaged? A file can be damaged, but the OS shouldn't blow away everything because of that.

      1. Anonymous South African Coward Silver badge

        Indeed. Doing a CHKDSK /F on DOS produced a couple of crosslinked files (if you're unlucky enough) which you can salvage, but it will not delete stuff.

        1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

          FAT file systems for DOS and Windows 95/98 could get trashed with cross-linked files but in my experience of trying to break stuff I have not seen such damage on journalled file systems like NTFS or ext3/4

          So unless your HDD is seriously bad or an OS has gone on a bug-fuelled rampage then disk repair won't cause any more damage than files already part-updated.

    2. Waseem Alkurdi

      In addition to what was said above, why are all the reports magically constrained to the My* directories (and the user profile directory in general)? Coincidence?

    3. oiseau
      Stop

      End of mystery...

      So ...

      Incompetence and absolute disregard for code quality and the end user has nothing to do with it?

      Whew ...

      I was starting to worry ...

  15. Herby

    Welcome to....

    ...beta test.

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: Welcome to....

      It's a little worse than beta testing mate. It's called testing a drug* on live human subjects without their express consent.

      * In this case the drug's side effects are a loss of control over the voluntary nervous system after the upgrade fails for the hundred millionth time, rolls back, then starts over again for no apparent reason.

    2. N2

      Re: Welcome to....

      '...beta test.'

      Surely you mean Alpha test? Sorry but crap like that would just not make beta.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Welcome to....

        Indeed. I miss the days when "alpha" and "beta" releases actually meant something about the state of development ("Alpha" means that the devs think the product is ready to release, "Beta" means that QA thinks the product is ready to release, actual release only happens when the beta has been tested by actual users in the real world.)

        But I'm showing my age here. These days, all releases seem to be alpha releases.

        1. John Miles

          Re: "Alpha" means that the devs think the product is ready to release

          probably should be renamed to Rockstar or ninjas release as likely deemed ready by someone who replied to a "Rockstar/ninja developer" advert. ;)

        2. ivan5

          Re: Welcome to....

          But I'm showing my age here. These days, all releases seem to be alpha releases.

          Isn't that agile dev-ops working as planned?

          1. JohnFen

            Re: Welcome to....

            "Isn't that agile dev-ops working as planned?"

            Pretty much, and that's the primary reason why Agile methodologies have led to a decrease in software quality.

        3. T. F. M. Reader

          Re: Welcome to....

          @JohnFen: These days neither developers nor QA have much say in the release process - it is all decided by Product Management / Sales / Other Management. Who often think in terms of "Will it install without major headaches in a PoC environment by our qualified personnel who know where not to trod? Yes? Good enough..." Subsequent headaches bypass Product/Sales, VP R&D has his anatomy covered in front of CEO/board because Product signed off on the release, and the engineers are left to deal with the fallout...

          We seem to be of a reasonably similar age...

  16. andy67

    Just like One Drive. After a bit, it starting using one of my cores 100% all of the time. I reinstalled it and it deleted/renamed random files in my development tree when re-syncing.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    That's just because today local storage is baaaaaaaaad....

    ... all the fashionable people store all of their lives into the cloud, where it's far easier to slurp it thoroughly.... what's better than "little bug" wiping local files to move the herd to the cloud?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not even Vista was that Bad...

    This is everything that was predicted.

    Upgrade monkey, test-tube baby UX!

  19. Jay Lenovo
    Angel

    Microsoft Windows

    I used to think that "Windows" was in reference to the ones on the PC screen.

    Now, with every forced "upgrade", I feel like the "Windows" referenced, are the ones patients look out through at the insane asylum.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Microsoft Windows

      "I feel like the "Windows" referenced, are the ones patients look out through at the insane asylum."

      Or those through which the PC gets thrown.

  20. GrahDun16

    Windows & The Curious Case Of The Missing Data

    I have found this to happen on more than one occasion, and from investigation it looks like One Drive and the new method of syncing all Windows 10 data is the main culprit. This seems to be the case if you have One Drive tied to your main directories for syncing & backup.

    After updating to new version of Windows, if you have One Drive active and synced.. The One Drive application procedes to delete all you information from the cloud and also your main Documents, Pictures, Videos & Music directories on your drive.

    I have managed get this data back by Unlinking One Drive from my PC, Going to One Drive Online, and in its Options screen, going to Restore One Drive, and selecting a version prior to the Windows Update.

    When the Restore process completes, the data would be back in my One Drive folders, and then I would go through the process of setting One Drive back up on my PC and re syncing the data .

    This solution seems to relate to previous protected folders/synced folders.. not sure what the recovery would be for non synced data-.. Microsoft needs to fix this ongoing bug and fast...

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: Windows & The Curious Case Of The Missing Data

      There is an option in this new version to "save space " by deleting everything on the HDD that is backed up to the cloud . Which sounds to me like one of the stupidest choices anyone could make.

      And maybe that's not related to this bug. but if it was I wouldn't be surprised.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Microsoft needs to fix this ongoing bug and fast

      Absolutely not. Microsoft needs to stay the course and hold fast.

      It's the only way users will get sufficiently fed up with Windows and move to Linux once and for all.

      Then we will finally have world peace.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Microsoft needs to fix this ongoing bug and fast

        "It's the only way users will get sufficiently fed up with Windows and move to Linux once and for all.

        Then we will finally have world peace."

        Nah, the Distro Wars would just intensify :-)

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    affected users have been scrambling for backups

    Et tu, MS?! I thought we were FRIENDS! I thought we were "PARTNERS"! I thought you said I can trust you?! Oh, the indignity!

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Re: affected users have been scrambling for backups

      I thought you said I can trust you

      Big mistake. Caesar paid the price hard.

  22. Mage Silver badge
    Pirate

    data stored in a user profile directory can be deleted.

    I discovered that this could happen easily with roaming profiles and sometimes changes to the user account, back in 2002.

    Ever since I have avoided "My Documents" and created folders <username-files> not part of any profile. Setting up the security on a computer used by more than one person is hard. If it's ONLY used by one person and no Domain Controller, or even no server at all, then "My Documents" isn't needed anyway?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Setting up the security on a computer used by more than one person is hard"

      Not that much - as long as you understand permissions.

      I never use profile directories for data - they are on a separate disk(s) (usually with some form of RAID) - whenever I need to reinstall the OS (disk crash, upgrade, whatever), data stays safe on the other disks(s). It also avoid long and stupid directory names ("My Pictures"? Like a five years old folder label?)

      Libraries can still be used to bring different folders under a common structure.

  23. Rich 10

    And this is why I backup 8 different ways, even to the extent of keeping a copy in my safe deposit box (neighbor's house burned down and it seemed to be a rational step after that)

  24. mark l 2 Silver badge

    The problem is that these feature updates are not just a service pack, but are in all but name upgrades to a different version of Windows.

    After 20 years of working with Microsoft OS I know that your twice as likely to come across a problem when upgrading Windows over the top of an old version than installing from a clean install.

    But with a 6 month release cycle of Windows 10 updates being forced upon you, rather than a choice of upgrading perhaps once every 3 or 4 years, the chance of a problem occurring have been vastly increased.

  25. aregross
    Happy

    What is this Windows 10 you speak of?

    Signed,

    Happy Win7 Pro User

    1. Highinthemountains

      You’ll find out all about it on January 14 of 2020 when mainstream support of Windoze 7 goes away

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "You’ll find out all about it on January 14 of 2020 when mainstream support of Windoze 7 goes away"

        But is mainstream support of W7 like that of W10?

  26. Maya Posch

    Old-school Windows user here.

    Maybe it's just me going senile,but across a few decades of Windows 3.x, NT, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7, I cannot remember Microsoft ever having this level of SNAFUs going on. Sure, there were the occasional embarrassing moments, and we still don't talk about Windows ME, but this level of OS-destroying, file-erasing level of FUBARing?

    Having used Windows 95 (SR2), 98 (SE), 2000, XP and 7, I have had my issues with moving to a newer version of Windows (except for 98 to 2k, which was hands-down better), but after a bit of tweaking I was able to settle into the new environment.

    That all ended with Windows 8, though. It was too different, too alienating, removing essentially the entire UI that had made Windows 95 into such a success. I was happy to stay on Windows 7.

    Then MSFT came up with Windows 10, and all hopes of things going back to normal quickly got dashed as I prodded and poked at the developer previews. This wasn't the Windows that I had gotten to like and wanted to use. Even while using it on my work laptop I did my best to try and settle into this version of Windows like I had done every time over the years, yet without luck.

    Sure, there were some things which I liked about it, such as WSL (which is pretty awesome), but as a whole, the UI felt broken, unfinished and glitchy. The newly organised and highly schizophrenic control panels are a disaster. Not having much control over Windows Updates and settings for it changing all the time with updates is horrible. I had keyboard layouts change spontaneously on me, and configuring Windows 10 to use multiple input methods with IME is fundamentally broken (despite having used it in 2k, XP and 7 without any issues).

    Then we get issues like this current one, and I wonder whether this is truly the end of me using Windows. I don't see how I could get onto the Windows 10 rolling release bandwagon. Not when it is such a miserable experience. I'm happy on Windows 7 right now, but in a few years I'll have to decide what comes next.

    Linux is obviously out. Virtually none of the software I need to use runs on it, and years (since '98) of trying to use desktop Linux have led me to believe that it'll always remain this disorganised, Windows 10-like buggy and glitchy mess. I don't want that either.

    Maybe the salvation is open source Windows, in the form of ReactOS. By pitching in the coming years to help the project out, maybe it'll become at least the equivalent of Windows 7 today by the time that the latter's support runs out and continuing to use it becomes impractical.

    What the heck happened to MSFT anyway?

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: Old-school Windows user here.

      Similar to my experience, but I jumped ship to Linux instead of Vista and 7 did not tempt me back. I now run VMs for w2k, XP and 7 for various special packages that I need but use Linux for email/web (and much C / python development) so security of VM OS/packages is much less of an issue.

      No, Linux is not perfect and the Gnome developers are a bunch of muppets, but it has caused me much less grief than I have seen in the last decade for Windows users.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        I have a PC with Mint on it

        I am actively trying to wean myself Windows, because 7 is the last Windows I will ever have.

        I am not yet strong enough to replace my Win7 machine yet, because it is my gaming rig and I'm sorry, but very few of the games I play run on Linux. And don't tell me about Wine, if I'm leaving Windows, I don't want a nicotine patch. I want to quit cold turkey, no messing around.

        The good news is that Steam is doing a bang-up job of getting Linux games into the mix. I'm basically counting on that for my retirement.

        Win7 will have to hold until then.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Maya Posch - Like you, I will hang to Windows 7

    until browser manufacturers will stop supporting it, which is at least 2 to 3 years (maybe longer) after the official EOL date. However, after that there is nothing that could force me to move to Windows 10 and so far I'm happy enough with Linux Mint.

    If you really want to wait for ReactOS to become useful don't hold your breath. It's way less likely to happen before the year of the Linux on the desktop.

    By the way I'm still using WindowsXP with no problem to this day even though Firefox pulled the plug, however I don't think I will be able to reinstall it. I kept all the drivers and I can always find a recycled PC but I doubt MS will accept to activate the installation - another beauty of proprietary software.

    1. Maya Posch

      Re: @Maya Posch - Like you, I will hang to Windows 7

      If I had been holding my breath for the 'Year of the Linux Desktop', I would have long since expired.

      It was supposed to happen in 1998, when I bought the full CD set and manual for SuSE Linux 6.3. Redhat Linux was going to change the world. Linspire and kin were going to make it a snap. Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint... I used them all and found them lacking.

      My most recent experiment saw me installing Linux Mint (18.3) on an older laptop that had previously been running Windows XP. I had even doubled the RAM in the system and installed a much larger and faster HDD. This worked okay for a few days, but then out of the blue the Cinnamon WM started crashing. I couldn't fix this and ended up installing an alternate WM.

      I need to use multiple input methods for typing English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Something which just works on Windows (until 7), but which has relatively poor support, and ultimately kept breaking down so that I had to keep tweaking it and went back and forth between the two main IME systems that currently exist for Linux.

      As I was doing translation work (English to Japanese) on the system at the time, this was incredibly frustrating. The worst part came I found out that I could not switch input methods on some (Qt5) apps for some reason. I could move to the app and hit the toggle button, but typing would not have the desired results. The app in question being the string translation tool itself (from Qt), this made me throw in the towel and use my other laptop (running Win7) instead.

      On the Win7 laptop everything Just Worked (tm) and severely improved my mood.

      This is typical of my Linux desktop experiments over the past 20 years, and I sadly see no sign that this is going to change any time soon. This is why I have a much better feeling about ReactOS as it seeks to replicate an experience which I know works, using a well-designed graphical stack and a singular desktop environment with everything standardised.

      At this point I mostly regard Linux as a nice way to use the Bash shell and use the GNU tools, though MSYS2 and WSL (sadly only on Windows 10) are close to obsoleting even the Linux VMs I run.

  28. tempemeaty
    Alert

    May the Farce be with y....ummmm...no.

    "I felt a great disturbance in the Farce, as if millions of files suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

  29. John Robson Silver badge

    Apple just did the same to me...

    Although with the ease of TimeMachine it hasn't actually caused me a problem at all...

    I pulled the old 60GB SSD out of the ageing Mac mini, and put in a 500GB disk in it's place, leaving the 500GB original spinning rust in there as well...

    On booting to the Mojave install stick and opening disk utility to decide what to do it took one look at the disks and made a brand new fusion drive out of them - wiping both - without asking me.

    Time machine backup pulled into a newly excluded directory so no actual data loss, but it was a very odd moment.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple just did the same to me...

      Although with the ease of TimeMachine it hasn't actually caused me a problem at all...

      Does that not say which company cares more about the users than the other?

      Time Machine does what it says on the tin IMHO which is more than can be said for MS these days.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Apple just did the same to me...

        It at least says which makes it easier to do the right thing.

        I used to try to take backups of things I thought important before upgrades... It's easiest just to backup the whole machine now.

        Rather glad I spent the couple of hours getting my docker AFP container to accept time machine connections as well as being available as a share...

        TM just seem to 'just work' (TM) which is more than I can say for most backup solutions I've come across.

        For my next trick I'll be getting the TM sparse bundle mounted read only on the server, so I can push copies to a remote location as well (they don't need the speed or connectivity of the local backup).

        Finally getting all this stuff sorted properly.

  30. Ojustaboo

    MS have now halted the rollout

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4464619/windows-10-update-history

    We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.

    If you have manually downloaded the Windows 10 October 2018 Update installation media, please don’t install it and wait until new media is available.

    We will provide an update when we resume rolling out the Windows 10 October 2018 Update to customers

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: MS have now halted the rollout

      Er..maybe so, but they haven’t told my ageing Acer, which (a) has a message in WU cheerily informing the world that we’re all up to date and just need a restart to charge headlong into the unknown, (b) has no trace anywhere of the actual update install, and (c) is not about to get restarted by me any time soon. I try not to let any of my data exist either in fewer than four separate (distributed) copies or in any of those kiddy-name My Whatsit folders, but it’s still a dispiriting process trying to defend yourself from these ransomware distributors at MS, and only incompetence and age prevent me from finally (it’s been since the 1980s) trying to move my life over to the Mint machine I’ve been playing with.

  31. Anonymous South African Coward Silver badge

    On day 4 Microsoft gave me a rolled back update....

    What will day 5 bring then? (Moanday)

  32. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    I'm not sure what's happening but ...

    Windows 10 upgrades have been messing with the user environment since the beginning - if you run a Windows 10 system with multiple accounts then after each upgrade there's a delay of several minutes when you first log into each account on the system - each time Windows displays the "getting things ready for you message."

    1. King Jack
      Trollface

      Re: I'm not sure what's happening but ...

      That's the spyware syncing up. Those keylogs, passwords and private docs need time to get catalogued.

  33. oiseau
    Facepalm

    Fake News

    ... but Microsoft would never have unleashed the upgrade knowing that there were issues, right?

    Whaaaaat?

    An upgrade with issues?

    From Microsoft?

    Nah!

    Fake news!!! :^ |

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mine just stopped with 'component failed to update'. Fortunately I have backups but it managed to restore the previous version.

  35. StuntMisanthrope

    Just stick the GUI on debian.

    The theory is corporate and people are paid to follow instructions. The home user is not and can't be trusted especially when trying to be clever. Just call it home and stick it next to etc. You can keep the old bits for a while in /reg. #irony

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Just stick the GUI on debian.

      It'll go nicely with the systemd convergence approach.

      Mine's the one with Devuan release notes in the pocket.

  36. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Windows

    No

    wonder they made win 10 free.....

    What has happened to m$?, we used to deride their products for being a bit staid and behind modern tech

    the occasional showstopper bug/flaw , but at least they had some quality control...

    And now..... if you upgrade you have a chance of losing your files? who came up with the design for the upgrade that went into 'my documents' anyway? what the hell is it doing there?

    Its almost as if m$ have subbed out creating win10 to the lowest bidding code shop they could find and then throwing it out the door without even checking it...

  37. This post has been deleted by its author

  38. stephanh
    Facepalm

    What do you expect when you fire the testers?

    Microsoft fired most of their Windows testers back in 2014. Since then it has been relying on "Windows Insider" for lot of testing, i.e. the fanboys. Code quality has been due south ever since, who could have imagined.

    On Thurrott the conclusion was that the issue was actually reported by the Insiders but apparently swamped by "feature requests" for all kinds of silly stuff.

    https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/187407/microsoft-has-a-software-quality-problem

    1. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: What do you expect when you fire the testers?

      Microsoft don't even seem to be responsive enough to users/customers concerns to bother to fix basic, simple, well known long standing bugs. An obvious one is using custom recycle bins. You still have to go to the registry to make the bloody things work. And add ,0 to the paths of the chosen icons. Why it needs that, or what it does is beyond me. but it's what you have to do. And it's bloody stupid that you have to do it if you want your own, less boring, recycle bin icon!

      God knows it's a small matter. But they made the bloody things customisable so they should bloody well have made sure it works properly. But update after sodding update the icon reverts to the standard one and when I go to change it again it still has the same fucking problem! Excuse my Klatchian.

      As a touchstone of how Microsoft works it's a priceless litmus paper. If they don't sort stuff like that out after so many updates it means they probably aren't keeping their eyes on the important details either.

  39. Zmodem

    who needs to buy, kickass undelete does everything http://kickassundelete.sourceforge.net/

  40. DrBed
    Thumb Up

    Funny thing

    What is the most funny thing? Right now, guys behind Chrome OS are working hard to make - Chrome OS & Windows dual boot! They didn't solve graphic acceleration for Linux yet, but... well... it seems that Chrome OS & Android & PWA & Linux hybrid is too much stable for wide market. So it has to be Redmond way. https://chromeunboxed.com/news/pixelbook-alt-os-windows-dual-boot

    When I run away from Windoze to MInt, few years ago (>Win8.x experiments), most people around me thought I am freak. Well, it could be but... this feeling, watching those troubles from a safe distance is priceless! Show must go on... :popcorn:

  41. Wolfclaw
    Facepalm

    Upgrade 3 machines now 2xAMD abd 1 Intel, with various C: drive free capacity direct from USB telling W10 to keep files and no issues found. For those that have lost files,yes Microsoft may have screwed up, but with so many free online backup solutions, they should also take responsibility. I've lost times the number of friends and failies machine sthat I have rebuilt and have had to backup years of files, due to put it bluntly, ignorance and lazyness.

  42. elvisimprsntr

    "All Windows users are beta testers. Consider it a privilege." - Satya Nadella

    All *nix in my home, except for a single W7 VM for a security panel configuration app which insists on using .NET

    1. Waseem Alkurdi

      Tried Mono under Wine?

  43. Stigofthedump
    Linux

    I guess I'm lucky

    Running dual-boot Kubuntu/Win 10. All my documents of any note are on the Linux partition and also stored on removable drives. However I didn't lose any of the few items in my Windows documents folder so I guess I'm fortunate

  44. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
    Linux

    "While some enterprising souls have used the situation as an opportunity to sell file recovery software"

    Just download http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?content=TRINITY_RESCUE_KIT_DOWNLOAD (but not onto a drive where the missing files were) and take it from there.

  45. Bruce Ordway

    3 things

    3 reasons why I don't have to worry...

    1) Continuing to use Windows 7 (and manually apply any updates)

    2) Store all my files on an external drive

    3) Backup all my files to a separate external drive.

    I know I'll need to switch to Windows 10 at some point.

    I only hope that the longer I wait, MS will use the time to clean Win10 up.

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