Microsoft Rereleases Windows 10 October 2018 Update, Fixes Data Deletion Bug (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is re-releasing its Windows 10 October 2018 Update today, following the company pulling it offline due to data deletion issues over the weekend. The software giant says there were only a few reports of data loss, at a rate of one one-hundredth of one percent. "We have fully investigated all reports of data loss, identified and fixed all known issues in the update, and conducted internal validation," says Microsoft's John Cable, director of program management for Windows Servicing and Delivery. Microsoft is now re-releasing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update to Windows Insiders, before rolling it out more broadly to consumers. "We will carefully study the results, feedback, and diagnostic data from our Insiders before taking additional steps towards re-releasing more broadly," explains Cable.

It appears the bug that caused file deletion was related to Windows 10 users who had enabled Known Folder Redirection to redirect folders like desktop, documents, pictures, and screenshots from the default location. Microsoft introduced code in its latest update to delete the empty and duplicate known folders, but it appears they weren't always empty. Microsoft has developed fixes to address a variety of problems related to these folder moves, and these fixes are now being tested with Windows Insiders.

Comments

0.01%

[Calydor]

We recently had an article that Windows 10 passed the 700 million install mark.

700,000,000 installations. 0.01% of that is 'only' 70,000 installs that lost data.

Doesn't fill me with confidence, especially after seeing the reason. It's not like hard drive space is costly these days, Windows should NOT take the initiative to do some spring cleaning without clear and explicit permission.

I have an idea

[slashmydots]

Now they should fix the problem where it can't rewrite the non-standard OEM BCD/boot loader partitions because there's not enough room because they were forced into the free upgrade from 7 and there's a 400MB different, minimum, and that doesn't work. Then it rolls back and tries it again because it's too stupid to have checked it in the first place or know why it's failing. Oh and I have another idea. Tell HP and Dell and Lenovo and literally every single OEM to STOP DOING CUSTOM BOOT LOADERS WITH LIKE 9 PARTITIONS!!!!!!

Not trusting it with a mile long pole

[xack]

You can't just release a fix to such a disastrous update with just three days testing. Microsoft needs to go back to the drawing board, formally revoke 1809 and focus on fixing bugs properly and release after a few months proper testing. This also affected the LTSC and Server versions of Windows, which are now officially not fit for purpose. Deletiongate means Microsoft will have a lot people and companies (especially mission critical ones) on Windows 7 well into the 2020s.

Re:I don't care if it was 700 or 70,000 or 70,000,

[commodore64_love]

And people scold me because I have Auto-update turned off. Mistakes like what Microsoft did this past weekend are precisely why. I'll update when I know it's safe.

- This bug also reminds me of the "Save with Replace" bug on my ancient Commodore 64 (and its 1541 floppy drive). It would overwrite the previous file with a new file, except the new file was sometimes unreadable garbage. It was even documented in the manual saying "Save your file first. Then erase the old one. Do not use the save-with-replace option as it generates corrupted files."

That was back in the days when nobody had time to fix hardware errors, so they just shipped the computer as is. (And fixed the error in the user documentation.)