Windows 10 1809 update deleted all files from Documents!

Anonymous
2018-10-04T19:09:32+00:00

Last night I updated to 1809, and it all went smoothly, but then I find that all my files in Documents are DELETED. Gone. Poof. This included many crucial documents and financial info. Yes, I have a backup (I think - using Windows Backup to a NAS). But this is pretty bad. Did no one in the first two rings run into this yet?

I understand (from the news) that this happens to all files in Documents that aren't synced to OneDrive. Further, the Documents folder is really an agglomeration of "Documents" from several different paths - not sure how that works, and it may or may not relate.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-10-06T22:20:33+00:00

    re: Microsoft needs to have better testing and qc on these updates if they're going to force them down people's throats all the time.

    Amen.

    re: Thankfully I can defer the updates for a year, and I've further turned off Windows update in group policy until they fix this mess.

    Unfortunately that option does not appear to be available for home edition?

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-10-06T18:00:28+00:00

    Last night I updated to 1809, and it all went smoothly, but then I find that all my files in Documents are DELETED. Gone. Poof. This included many crucial documents and financial info. Yes, I have a backup (I think - using Windows Backup to a NAS). But this is pretty bad. Did no one in the first two rings run into this yet?

    I understand (from the news) that this happens to all files in Documents that aren't synced to OneDrive. Further, the Documents folder is really an agglomeration of "Documents" from several different paths - not sure how that works, and it may or may not relate.

    I attempted the same update and my system had the identical issues as yours. Unlike most of you I did not have a back up. I have the same question for MS. When are you going to fix this!!???

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-10-06T17:56:57+00:00

    Hi Tom -

    Alas - it gets worse. Microsoft's Backup silently stopped backing up back in February and didn't tell me, and I didn't notice. So I have maybe 100 hours of tedium ahead of me as I try to reconstruct my financial records... And the restart (3x) didn't do anything. Sigh.

    Hi Stuart,

    Did you try to recover your files using data recovery software? It might work.

    Hey guys,

    How can do I get this "data recovery software"? I new to this computer stuff and I just lost my most (if not all) of my files. Very frustrating!

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  5. Neil D 34,280 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-10-06T11:42:20+00:00

    It seems MS have removed the version 1809 update due to these sort of problems.

    See sticky thread at the top of the Windows 10 forum.

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-october-update-is-no-longer-being/62e8e6b4-0089-41c2-a104-5a5a768a48f6

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