Automatic Update deleted all my files!

Thanks for the reply, you've given me plenty of things to try and I really appreciate it. The only thing that worries me is that my desktop is just the way I had it before, actually everything is just like it was before the update except every file from the picture folder is gone. I've searched the complete hard drive, even hidden files for JPG files. I thought that would be the way to go but no luck. 

Thanks for your reply I'm going to get to work.

If I were you I would start a new topic/question/post for your problem...  this one has too much trying and guessing.

It is unlikely that a Windows update would result in the deletion of a users files - it might look that way (scary) but that is probably not what is going on.

It is more likely that somehow your user profile has gotten corrupted and Windows has logged you in to a temporary profile and from there you can't see or find any of the stuff you are used to seeing...  The desktop is different, all your shortcuts are missing, the folders where your stuff should be seem empty...

All your stuff is probably still on your system but just in a different place.

Here are some general thoughts on the subject that you can peruse and if you can't figure it out from here, start your own question:

This condition sounds like a corrupted user profile.

Sometimes (for some reason) Windows has a problem reading your profile information when you login and that condition could just be temporary and simply restarting your system will get things going again and if that works you should keep an eye on things because it could be a sign of a bigger problem.

When your user profile is corrupted Windows will log you in to a temporary profile and that temporary profile is not going to have any of the things that you are used to seeing - but you can fix it.

Every user on your system has a user profile and under each user profile are all the things what belong to that user - the Windows desktop, the taskbar, the All Programs menus, Documents, Music, Images, etc.  Each user has their own set of these and if Windows has logged you in to a temporary profile you are not going to see any of these things.

You can use Explorer to navigate to the c:\Users folder and look for a folder that has the same name as the user profile you are used to using - that is where all your "missing" items are.  You might see something like this in the Users folder:


When your user profile is corrupted Windows will log you in to a temporary profile and that temporary profile is not going to have any of the things that you are used to seeing - but you can usually recover everything missing from a corrupted user profile.

When you login you might briefly see a message "Preparing your desktop" followed by a message like this:


That message will fade away leaving you with a desktop with just a few icons - maybe all you see are a few basic things like a Recycle Bin.

A temporary profile does not last...  as soon as you shutdown or logoff the temporary profile is deleted and when you restart your system or login again you will see the same thing again (a good thing to test).

Sometimes the problem is temporary and if you restart your system a few times things might start working again (lucky you) but if that does not work you are going to have to create a new Windows user and copy parts of the afflicted user profile to the new user profile.

Another quick test to verify the problem of a corrupted user profile is to open a Command Prompt window and see what the prompt says:

Open a Command Prompt window and tell us what the prompt says:


Normally the Command Prompt window will open in the Users folder that belongs to that user like this for user Jose:


If the prompt looks like this, it means your login profile is corrupted and you have been logged in to a temporary profile (it says TEMP):


When you open a Command Prompt window what does your prompt say?

Enter 'exit' to close the Command Prompt window.

If your user profile is corrupted and fails repeatedly to login, you cannot fix or salvage it - you must create a new Windows user account and copy most (not all) of the files from your corrupted profile to the new user account and then use that new account from now on.

Microsoft has an article that tells you how to do that:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14039/windows-7-fix-corrupted-user-profile

Notice that you copy all of the files exceptones that look like this:

• Ntuser.dat
• Ntuser.dat.log
• Ntuser.ini

One of those files has the corruption in it so you don't want to bring those corrupted files (or any that look like it) into the new user account you have created.

For example you would NOT want to copy files that looks like these from the corrupted profile into the new profile:


That didn't work for me. I'm beginning to think I've lost years of pictures. I had some backed up but not all of them. Had I known this update was coming I would have backed up everything.

I can't figure out how to enable the guest account in control panel. I've looked everywhere under users to try this as this update deleted years of pictures that I had. I've searched the hard drive and they seem to be gone. I can't believe that an update would do this but it seems this is the only folder affected.

To avoid confusion & duplication of effort, please post any/all further follow-up in replies to your original thread, Hollie => http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/everything-has-been-deleted/2905c29e-2030-4f2a-8043-baaa47cd04f5