Updated to 1903 but 'user'.000 now created and holds all my user files

I finally had time to try the "scrub Zune from the system" approach, and it worked!!! On two different computers!

I had already rolled back to version 1803, and tried to disable further updates. (That didn't work.) So I did a full disk backup, then uninstalled the Zune software. Then--and this took some hunting--I found a couple of folders under AppData> Local> Packages> that had Microsoft.Zune in the folder names. I copied the folders into a safe location in Dropbox, and then deleted them.

Then I ran the update to Win version 1909. It worked, and my Username folder was the way it's supposed to be, with no User.000.

Then I did the same thing on my office machine, which had the same issue.

Miracle!

I had spent hours with high-level tech support on this. I can only conclude that Microsoft developers never look at this board, or if they do, they don't care. Every support technician should know about this.

And Microsoft should have fixed it months ago, so it wouldn't happen in the first place.

I do not have Zune, Xbox or anything else like that on my computers, so this is definitely not the cause of my problem. The upgrade created a new user (000) that windows 10 defaults to. I have created a work around because I mainly work with Word documents and Dropbox and that is where my troubles began. I reconfigured my privacy defaults in my original user Dropbox files and re-synced my files and now that is fine. But my concern is that windows is still creating files in (000) and my storage is getting full. I am afraid right now to delete everything in (000) for fear of losing important files in case my original user is deleted by another upgrade so I am going to give it a little time to see what happens. For a company that pretty much started it all you think their highly paid IT guys would be smart enough to figure a true fix for this very annoying bug! Thanks for the posts and Happy New Year Everyone:)

Damn! it's stunning that this issue still exists - my original post starting this thread was 6th July 2019, and this issue was present a long time prior to that. While many folks have been mentioning Zune as part of the cause, my issue was different since I didn't have Zune installed. What on earth is the problem here for MS?? For their own update (1903, etc) to break their own software (Outlook) shows exactly how much they give a damn.

Other than the Restore to Previous Version of Windows function, which can (maybe) roll you back to 1803, no easy fix that I've found.

I've just noticed 1909 and installed it on my daughter's computer (which did not have 1903, but she didn't have ZUNE either.  I think I installed that on my PC when years ago I had a Windows Phone!) and there were no problem.

I do wonder whether MS have actually sorted the problem out for the 1909 feature upgrade?  If so, well done MS.

Though it could just be that you had done what several, including myself, did, and removed the ZUNE bits and pieces?

My personal view is that the external HD is a red herring, and that it was ZUNE causing the problem for most of us.