Microsoft Pulls Windows 10 October 2018 Update After Reports Of Documents Being Deleted

Microsoft is slamming the brakes on the Windows 10 October 2018 Update rollout.

After many Windows numerous users across the web reportedly complained of problems experienced with the latest major update – especially loss of their user files, Microsoft acknowledged the problem and quickly responded by preventing the update from being installed on some systems—User profiles and entire folders full of files went missing in some cases and rolling back the upgrade didn’t restore them

The upgrade became available during the company’s Surface event on Tuesday, but in the days that followed, Now Microsoft is temporarily halting the October 2018 Update’s distribution due to the issue.

In a support document update, the Redmond-based OS maker said it took this decision after users complained that v1809 had deleted files after the update.

“We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.

For now, until the issue is fixed, the October 2018 Update has been pulled. It is no longer available for download officially, there is no word on when it will be made available again. This is the second time Microsoft has had a major issue with a new feature update for Windows 10, the first of which happened earlier this year with the April 2018 Update, which resulted in a three week delay.

Microsoft also advises not clean installing the new update either. It’s possible that this issue will be fixed in a cumulative update, or it may be a big enough problem that requires Microsoft to compile another RTM build, just as it did with the April 2018 Update. Microsoft has been struggling to assure quality with its last few feature update releases at launch, which does not paint a positive picture for customers.

If you have already upgraded to the October 2018 Update and are experiencing issues, you should be able to recover back to the previous update by heading into Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Go back to the previous version of Windows 10. This will restore your OS to the previous feature update that was running, likely the April 2018 Update. If you have already upgraded and found that your files are missing, Microsoft recommends you contact their support hotline at 1-800.

This is a very unfortunate bug, and it’s unlikely that it affected a huge number of users, but with 700 million installs of Windows 10, Microsoft needs to be more careful with their updates because even a tiny percentage of users being affected can still be millions of people.

It’s also a good warning to always backup your computer before doing anything major, including installing one of the Spring/Fall updates for Windows 10, which are always major updates with a ton of changes.