The recent W10 Update 1809 has caused certain problems. The one that has affected me is not isolated, but fortunately I'm not seriously harmed by what has happened.
Nearly all data saved on Drive C was wiped. As everything of importance is on Drive D, my loss is trivial - just a few bits and bobs that ended up on Drive C because the system directed them there and I didn't conscientiously move them. But if it had been where I had stored Sibelius files, it could have been serious.
Microsoft appears to have suspended the roll-out of the update, but if by any chance you have downloaded it but not installed it, the advice is: don't.
If you have, and like me, lost data, you may be able to retrieve it by the use of the free program called Recuva.
All of this underlines the advice not to store data on C and religiously to back up your data to an external drive and/or the cloud.
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Chris Crawley (composer and horn-player) using Dorico 1.2.10, Sibelius 7.1.3, NotePerformer 3.0.0, Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7, 3.30GHz, 64GB RAM, DacMagic 100
The latest news on this is that Microsoft has (temporarily) pulled the update.
I spent some time with a Microsoft technician yesterday evening and allowed her remote access to my PC. After an hour nothing useful had emerged. One problem in my case was that I performed a disk clean-up after installing the update but before I was aware of the missing files, and the folder windows.old, which is where they might have been moved to, was deleted, as confirmed by the technician.
There are some disturbing stories of people's Drive D being compromised also, which is very worrying. It shows you really must back up data externally.
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Chris Crawley (composer and horn-player) using Dorico 1.2.10, Sibelius 7.1.3, NotePerformer 3.0.0, Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7, 3.30GHz, 64GB RAM, DacMagic 100
Sounds like you mostly got away with it, Chris. Good!
You'll forgive me for reminding us all that the real message is to be meticulous about backups. Yor computer can let you down at any time, for a multitude of reasons and causes. And it will, one day. Maybe today.
A secondary moral is to not be too obsessed with 'tidying up'. Better a full disk with two copies of everything than an empty one with none!
Considering I'm the most awfully untidy person in real life, for some reason I have what almost amounts to an obsession with getting rid of "unnecessary" stuff on my PC.
But at least I do back up all data, every evening, to an external hard drive which is connected only for the duration of the back-up.
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Chris Crawley (composer and horn-player) using Dorico 1.2.10, Sibelius 7.1.3, NotePerformer 3.0.0, Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7, 3.30GHz, 64GB RAM, DacMagic 100
> But at least I do back up all data, every evening, to an external hard drive which is connected only for the duration of the back-up.
>
This. With two external drives. Synced one at a time incase of failure or other mishap with one of the drives. Never let an operating system own your files. (Clouds evaporate, use only for convenience of access across devices, never as a backup system.)
Which folders does the Windows 10 1809 Update erase?
On my girlfriend's PC, I found C:Users>(her user name)>Documents had been wiped so I restored it from an external backup. How can I know if other folders were affected and which ones?
"Which folders does the Windows 10 1809 Update erase?"
Not really an answer to your question, but any deleted files were supposed to be saved in a folder called windows.old, which in my case was itself deleted by a disk clean-up performed before I knew the deletion problem had affected me. If your GF has this folder, check what's in it.
You can also run the free utility Recuva and check which files have been deleted.
Documents, music, photos and videos have been reported to have disappeared. Some people have reported that document folders on Drive D have been affected.
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Chris Crawley (composer and horn-player) using Dorico 1.2.10, Sibelius 7.1.3, NotePerformer 3.0.0, Windows 10 64-bit, Intel Core i7, 3.30GHz, 64GB RAM, DacMagic 100
I searched File Explorer could not find windows.old.
I called Microsoft's toll free number and they said to bring the computer in to a Microsoft store nearby.
Seems like they could be more helpful after destroying personal data. Really, the one thing a computer should never do is destroy user data. Thanks, M$.
I do back up her C drive to an external disk daily. The only thing on her D drive, as far as I know is recovery. I don't know if that was affected. I'll try to take it to the store and see what they say. She hasn't noticed any files missing but that doesn't mean that some weren't erased, in addition to the ones I already restored.
As a mac user, I've learned a lot about PCs by maintaining hers. But mostly I've learned that I strongly dislike Windows.
> I searched File Explorer could not find windows.old.
Correct: this will not be returned from searches - that location is not indexed by the search function. You have to know how to get to it. It has all the previous files inside.
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Sibelius 2018.7/7.5.1/7.1.3/6.2/5.2.5, PhotoScore Ult 2018.7, Windows 10 64-bit 16GB. Desktop, and Microsoft Surface Book.
>that location is not indexed by the search function. You have to know how to get to it. It has all the previous files inside.
Of course, you can't get to it by searching. That would make sense and this is Windows.
Okay, I found the windows.old folder at the top level of the C drive. I don't find anything personal in it, just system type files. In particular, I don't find the previous contents of C:Users>(her user name)>Documents which the upgrade had erased and which I have now restored from an external backup.
As far as I know, her computer data is okay. I'll probably take her machine to the store in case they can help further.
Thank you, all, for help with this non-Sibelius issue.
I never use the default places for saving if I have any say in the matter. I always set documents to be saved to an external drive and have a backup drive that is a copy of the first drive in case of crash. It's the only way to go!
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Win 10 Pro x64, Sib Ultimate (build 1918) 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, 8GB,7TB 7200rpm HDD, Scarlett 6i6, Sib 6.2,7.5, NotePerformer and others.
Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse.
mike@mike-lyons.co.uk
My girlfriend often doesn't know where she saves things and therefore has trouble finding them when she needs to open them again. When she does know, it is usually the desktop. After she has filled up the entire desktop, she consolidates and makes a little room for more. If I didn't connect and run a backup drive, that wouldn't get done.
So if she couldn't find a file, that could be normal and have nothing to do with the Windows update!
Now before you tell me that I need a new girlfriend, realize that she deals very well with me, which is something of a miracle.
There's little point in moving Documents, Pictures etc. off Drive C: unless you need the space. They AND the program/system files both need to be backed up.
I come across a lot of systems where the user has gone to considerable trouble to have applications save their data somewhere other than where they want to. I don't mean a simple relocation of 'Documents' to another drive, or a tendency to chuck everything onto the Desktop, but a refusal to put anything in 'Documents', 'Pictures' etc. at all. Odd :)
I have a lot of sib related files in my scores folder (not just sib, but wav, opt, pdf and wmv/mp4.
They are all organised to this queen's taste. Unlike my house, everything has its place.
I also have thousands of photos from holidays, concerts family occasions ets. There simply isn't room on my internal hard drive - even though I have upgraded it to twice its original size (now 1TB). I do have a lot of other programs on this machine, so I need a lot of the space for those. Anyway, Laurence, do I try to tell YOU how to organise your stuff? ;-)
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Win 10 Pro x64, Sib Ultimate (build 1918) 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, 8GB,7TB 7200rpm HDD, Scarlett 6i6, Sib 6.2,7.5, NotePerformer and others.
Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse.
mike@mike-lyons.co.uk
I keep my data files off drive C: too. In my case, because C: is a medium-sized SSD with enough space for system and programs, but not enough for all my data. Both drives are backed up to a big, but not particularly fast, external drive.
There's another, smaller internal SSD that I use for Sibelius Sounds sample data etc. I don't bother to back that up, as it's easily restored.