WIN 10 UPDATE DELETES YOUR FILES

Microsoft pauses release to deal with problem

EVERY UPDATE OF WINDOWS throws up a few “issues.” The latest, the October 2018 update, also known as build 1809, has not proved immune. Along with a scattering of new features, we also get some new bugs. Among these is one that has caused Microsoft to pause the release altogether after only four days, which is embarrassing for Microsoft, and alarming for everybody else.

As it says on the company support pages, the release was paused as “we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.” Essentially, people found themselves looking at empty folders where their personal data should be, specifically “Documents,” “Pictures,” “Videos,” and “Music.” A potentially nasty moment as you try to remember exactly when you made your last backup, and curse yourself for clicking “Check for updates.”

The root cause is unclear, although early reports indicate that moving your “Documents” folder to another drive is one trigger. Luckily, the files are recoverable, but you need to run a recovery utility, such as Recuva, immediately, or risk having them overwritten and lost forever.

This sort of trouble really should be caught during beta testing (although there are forum posts that indicate this bug was known about weeks ago). We expect a bug or three to surface with any major update, but this one is a peach, with the potential to do enormous amounts of damage. No doubt, as we write, Microsoft engineers are working night and day to fix this, but for a while there, a Win 10 update was a scarier proposition than it usually is.