Microsoft stops the deployment of Windows 10 October 2018 Update: What happens next?

Microsoft has discontinued the deployment of Windows 10 version 1809, updated October 2018. The company released its latest feature update for the general public on Tuesday, Oct. 2, and had planned to release it automatically. via Windows Update about a week later. These plans are pending while the company reviews the data loss reports associated with this upgrade.

See Also: Microsoft Extracts Windows 10 October Update (Version 1809)

Earlier today, on the Windows 10 Update History page, Microsoft confirmed its decision to suspend public release of this release:

We suspended the release of the Windows 10 October 2018 (Version 1809) update for all users, while we were reviewing isolated reports of missing users for certain files after the update.

[…]

If you have manually downloaded the Windows 10 October 2018 installation media, please do not install it and wait until new media is available.

We will provide an update when we resume the update of the Windows 10 October 2018 update to customers.

This is the second consecutive semiannual publication to have been affected by isolated reliability issues at the time of its release. The April 2018 update (version 1803) has just started its official publication month. Microsoft gave the green light on April 30. Even in this case, the initial release had significant problems caused by compatibility issues with Avast antivirus software and SSDs.

In November 2015, Microsoft unexpectedly withdrew the first feature update (version 1511) of its download servers, but did not do so in response to a known bug.

As Liam Tung of ZDNet announced earlier this week, the first wave of reports came from Reddit, Twitter and Microsoft community forums.

This morning I did a search in the Microsoft Feedback Hub application, where Windows 10 users can provide bug reports and feature requests for previews and released versions. A quick search revealed several examples of users reporting deleted file issues.

A report three months ago was entitled "Deleted Files !!!!" and noted that after installing a preview version, "my Documents folder had been overwritten by a new Documents folder, completed by a custom icon. All content was gone."

A more recent report was written by a Windows 10 user who installed the version 1809 update a few hours after it was released:

Upgrade Dell Inspiron from April 2018 to October 2018 and all my documents and photos have been removed. This only happened on this laptop; An Acer laptop and two upgraded desktop computers at the same time did not experience it.

On the Inspiron, only the data and images in my file have been lost. other user account documents and photos on this laptop were fine.

Several replies cited similar experiences, all within 48 hours of the initial report:

I am on a Dell Precision. That happened to me too! The contents of the Documents folder have completely disappeared. All other folders in my user profile such as Desktop, AppData, etc. are intact. Fortunately, I had a backup of the summer. I am a loyal Windows user since Win95 and I have never had a Windows update for deleting my Documents folder. Very disappointed today.

Several contributors who updated several computers reported that the problem was related to only one device:

I had the same problem happen. I updated two computers last night. A computer Documents and images are there and everything is fine on the second computer, my Documents and Images folder is now empty, as well as all the files contained in these folders. I can confirm that the other files in my Users folder are still present. Only documents and images have been deleted.

Another Windows Insider program member who sent comments reported issues on one PC, while three other upgraded devices were not affected. This report indicated that only the Documents folder had been removed, leaving the Downloads, Music, and Favorites folders undisturbed.

After manually analyzing several public Hub reports, I can not find any obvious pattern. One of the features I'm wary of is the new Auto Save feature added to OneDrive earlier this summer, which allows Windows 10 users to link local documents, images and desktop folders. (See "Microsoft Provides the" Known Folder Migration "Feature for OneDrive Consumer Users.")

Microsoft says that so far, this problem involves "isolated reports". It is probably correct. At this point in the deployment cycle, several million devices, at most, are running Windows 10 version 1809. All of these upgrades have been delivered to Windows Insider program members or to what Microsoft calls "requesters" who have proactively visited Windows 10. download page to install the upgrade manually.

Because the problem appears to be associated with the data migration part of the Windows Installer, it is unlikely that this will affect you if you have already upgraded to this update. If you have previously downloaded the installation media and are considering a manual upgrade this weekend, it would be wise to cancel these plans.

For computers running Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, version 1803, it is strongly recommended that you use one of the techniques described in this article to postpone the update of this feature until the resolution is reached. complete of these initial problems:

Windows Update October 10, 2018: How to get it, how to avoid it

At a minimum, I recommend moving any professional PC from the default (targeted) semi-annual channel to the half-yearly channel.

In the meantime, this highlights the need for full local and cloud-based backups. This specific bug is just one of the entries in the almost infinite list of issues that can occur with storage devices. The unfortunate soul who reported losing 220GB of data, for example, could have saved a lot of money by archiving these files in OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive or another cloud storage service, and then using the file history built into Windows 10. tool to backup data files.

See: Windows 10 tip: Enable file history for automatic backups

Whatever your operating system may be, it may be a good time to check your backups.

Related Links

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Windows 10 October update issues: documents cleared, plus warning about Intel drivers

Back up the files before upgrading to Windows 10 1809 and, if you receive a warning about Intel drivers, do not proceed.

Windows 10 tip: Enable file history for automatic backups

The File History feature of Windows 10 keeps regular copies of files so you can go back to a previous version of a file or restore an entire system. The feature is designed to use an external drive, but you can also specify a network location. Here's how.

Windows Update October 10, 2018: How to get it, how to avoid it

Microsoft will soon begin distributing the official version of Windows 10 version 1809, the update of October 2018. If you do nothing, it will arrive via Windows Update in the coming months. Here's how to take more control over the process.