Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update (#1809)

The Register ^ | Oct 8, 2018 | Richard Speed

[dayglored]

This is an update/follow-up to https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3693391/posts from a couple days ago.

Although there haven't been a huge number of reports of file damage yet, the situation appears serious enough to warrant its own fresh warning thread.

[dayglored]

Windows 10 Update #1809 Warning... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

[C210N]

files not being where they had left them...

What a polite PC way of saying they were permanently clobbered with no ability to recover them.

[Navy Patriot]

Microsoft yanks the document-destroying Windows 10 October 2018 Update (#1809)

Micro$haft should yank Windows 10 back so far it becomes Windows 7.

[SkyDancer]

Don’t the software people check out updates before sending them out?

[CIB-173RDABN]

My main computer is a VISTA.

I will upgrade when it dies.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

As I understood disabling TCP/IP v6 causes the problem?

[HonorInPa]

MS OneDrive is free. I always send a copy of all documents to OneDrive incase my hard drive craps. You can do it automatically.

[Berlin_Freeper]

My 10 year old LG computer (upgraded twice) kept failing to update to this. Could not figure out how to turn off updates. So it kept failing to update regularly and is time consuming. So I am actually glad to hear this. No more failed updates. For now.

I am getting a new computer, soon-ish.🙂

[Pollard]

[TomGuy]

Is that the reason?

My win10 tablet rebooted about 4 different times yesterday.

MS does NOT have a stellar history with updates; thus its forcing win10 updates always causes me to wonder which update will crash the tablet.

[dayglored]

> As I understood disabling TCP/IP v6 causes the problem?

Interesting, I haven't seen that yet. Gotta link?

Most of the world is still using IPv4 successfully, but Microsoft decided that Windows 10 -defaults- to IPv6, so a lot of networks (my workplace included) disable IPv6 to avoid confusion after a reboot. Maybe this update is Microsoft's attempt to convince the rest of the world that IPv6 MUST be used, practicality be damned.

If so, best of luck with that, MS. IPv6 is slowly catching on in places where it makes sense (cell-data IPs for example), but IPv4 is still humming along just fine in its little 32-bit spaces, using NATs and such. Sometimes the "IPv4 IS RUNNING OUT OF ADDRESSES!!" doom-sayers sound like the Global Warming doom-sayers.

[Right Wing Assault]

The Keystone Koders strike again!

What, are you hiring Antifa arson boys? Chinese Feinstein spies? Russian Putin poisoners?

[1FreeAmerican]

I think this might also have affected my Win7 machine. I use Microsoft Office online version and this morning all my pdf file icons were different and files were missing. Not enough time this morning to sort it out though.

[dayglored]

> Don’t the software people check out updates before sending them out?

They do, but there are limits on how many combinations of computers, devices, and environments they can test, and still make the release date. And when it comes down to the wire, the release date usually wins.

In this case MS clearly screwed the pooch, cutting corners.

[Right Wing Assault]

One guy on zdnet said, "I have just updated my windows using the October update (10, version 1809). It deleted all my files of 23 years in amount of 220GB. This is unbelievable."

Yes, believe it. Didn't you back them up?

[Billthedrill]

I like the OS but the changeover to quarterly major upgrades has been a disaster due to consistently poor testing and QA. The Windows Insider program was supposed to help this by placing prototypes in the hands of a population more diverse than that of the test labs but it did not appear to turn this one up. If I were Microsoft I'd be thinking about changing the entire paradigm of taking major portions of their user population through trauma four times a year - yes, the old system of monthly patching was cumbersome but it didn't require gigabyte-sized downloads and so many changes all at once that they're impossible to isolate, and if a bad one turned up - it happens - it could be rolled back individually.

I was on a tightly metered connection for about a year and four times a year I would have to decide which of my (then) four computers I could allow to talk to the Internet at all, lest they be hijacked by the mandatory update process and my monthly allowance used up in a single download. Allowing the user to say No to this (it's in networks/metered connections) only means that the user will be running without a possibly vital security update. This system simply isn't flexible enough and it ought to be redesigned from the ground up. IMHO.

[upchuck]

Win 7 Pro x64 forever user here. {Chuckle.}

[dayglored]

> One guy on zdnet said, "I have just updated my windows using the October update (10, version 1809). It deleted all my files of 23 years in amount of 220GB. This is unbelievable." Yes, believe it. Didn't you back them up?

You can't fix stupid. "Backup" software has been around since, oh, 1960-something.

Maybe he has backups, but he just doesn't like the idea of restoring them. Yes, that's the ticket...

[editor-surveyor]

.
>> “files not being where they had left them. <<

That was what bugged me about win 7.

They mess with the directory structure.