If you have the October Windows update, do a back up NOW!

[Rachael]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-1 ... r-warning/

More info: https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions ... ing-files/

Thanks to Tiger for bringing this to my attention on Discord - and after doing some research, this looks to be a real problem.

It seems as of now, Microsoft has paused rolling out the update, but it may be too late for some folks.

[SouthernLion]

Is it just stuff in that folder?

[Rachael]

Not sure to be honest. That seems to be what people are saying though.

[Nash]

LMAO it's 2018 and there are still software that mistakenly deletes user's files on the hard disk I thought this shit died in 1999

[Rachael]

You kind of trust an OS developer not to do that though, aye? Especially one that FORCES updates on you...

There's not a chance in hell that a court case will survive in the Americas over this due to the way the EULA is set up. In Europe, however... contracts are not quite as sacrosanct... I guess we'll see what happens there.

[Nash]

Rachael: Yeah, that's what annoys me the most - such an amateur mistake made by the world's most popular OS, installed on the most amount of computers in the world... whew!

[Viscra Maelstrom]

i don't think i have anything vital stored in the Documents folder, but this is a good reminder to backup some of the stuff i've neglected doing recently.

[Mikk-]

It's not just the documents folder, but the entire users directory, no?

[wildweasel]

For what it's worth, MS have pulled the update until the bug can be investigated and fixed, so if you haven't got the update yet, you're fine.

@ Mikk-: I can't seem to find any information about just how much of the Users folder was getting eaten; some sources were saying "everything in Documents", others were just saying "the Users folders." One site was saying that the Users area gets backed up between updates into Windows.old on the system drive, but because I'm not the type to trust unsubstantiated info, I made a manual backup of it to an external drive (some 15 GB worth of cruft).

[Gez]

Bwahahaha:

As noted by one Windows 10 user on Twitter, documents saved in the user directory and not OneDrive will be deleted.

"Put your stuff on our servers (so that the NSA can look at it) or lose it."

[Sarah]

I'm glad I saw this when I did, I'm on 1803. I haven't confirmed that this works, but this post on EaseUS shows how to disable Windows Update for Home users. Bear in mind you'll have to turn it back on in the future.

[drfrag]

That information is obsolete, i'm on pro 1709 and i've delayed feature updates up to 8 months.
Switching to the semi-annual channel will delay the update 4 months and then i set defer feature updates to 120 days, i kept quality updates at 0.
For home versions you can edit the registry but it can be a bit risky so if you want to go that route creating a restore point is recommended.
Here is the required info:
https://winaero.com/blog/delay-windows- ... 2018-1809/

[ramon.dexter]

Whoops, did the update on friday

Well, let's see what happens. Did a backup on two places...so, let's see.

[crazyflyingdonut]

I'm worried about backing up my stuff because the "My Documents" folder on my computer alone contains 35 GB of files, but Google Drive only supports 15 GB, unless I pay them (I can't).

What kind of crap is on my computer? Mostly Doom files, Software files, files relating to other games, a picture of my ugly face (don't ask for me to send it to you)... Yeah, I do a lot of crap on my computer.

[Enjay]

Do you have enough space to back up to a different location on your HD? Or you could use a USB stick.