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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Widows 26H2 update
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palcal Guru  Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2059 |
I recently installed this update ( 26H2 ) on a Laptop I share with my daughter and all her files have disappeared. My Desktop and files are OK but her Desktop is gone, replaced with a black screen and some of the icons from my desktop. I have searched everywhere, I found some of her Pictures but documents and everything else is gone. I went to One Drive and it took over 12 hours to sync, I think all the files were gone and it reloaded them from the computer. A complete stuff up. Edited 2026-11-13 08:29 by palcal "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 10125 |
These daze when it comes to Windoze updates, I would never let one proceed without first having done a full backup to the cloud or an external drive - or both. The number of things that Windoze Update seems to screw up, seems to be getting worse all the time. This is one of the more horrific stories I have heard though - update should NEVER screw with the user's files, it's only supposed to be updating the SYSTEM. I wonder if anyone else has had that problem - might ask Mr. Google, cos I would be surprised if you were the only one. EDIT: After a quick search around the net, it appears that 26H2 deleting personal files is a VERY common problem, and has happened to A-LOT of people. It seems that MOSTLY, the update moves the files to the recycle bin, so you can recover them from there, but not always. Why a Windoze update should EVER need to delete personal user files, is beyond me. Perhaps part of the update, does some kind of virus or malware scan, and the user's personal files are tagged as false-positives so they get deleted or something like that, but whatever the reason, this is VERY odd behaviour for an UPDATE. Move this laptop to Linux Mint or other Linux distro you like, and be done with Windoze and MS. If your daughter is reluctant to move off of Windoze, use this very event as leverage, cos you won't see this kind of BS under Linux, and you can do updates as and when YOU feel like it, not just when the OS feels like it. Edited 2026-11-13 09:10 by Grogster Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2059 |
Yes LINUX, I use in in my workshop and I asked my daughter some time ago but she wanted to stay with Windows. Maybe now is the time. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 10125 |
You're her father - you hold rank over her!  Joking aside, this event can work well in your favour to help convince her to break away from Windoze. Once she sees that Mint or Zorin etc - any of the popular alternatives to Windoze these daze - is pretty similar in how it operates and how to access documents etc, she'll probably move over without much issue. Accessing the web is basically EXACTLY the same, with most of the browsers also having Linux versions, as you will probably know. It only becomes a bit more of an issue, if she has some kind of Windoze-only software that won't run in Linux, or has no Linux alternative. Also, think about the fact that YOU......won't have to try to clean up the mess that the next Windoze update does, so there is less stress on you, so could be win-win!  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2059 |
The emojis were well placed "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| ville56 Guru Joined: 08/06/2022 Location: AustriaPosts: 667 |
I think your 26H2 accident just reminds us about the importance of having a valid backup available at any point in time. Being a bit sloppy myself I just started it once again ... and this insight is IMHO independent of the operating system  73 de OE1HGA, Gerald |
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Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 1583 |
Youtube 'no comment |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4398 |
In case it's news: there are Linux images (boot from USB/DVD) for rescuing files and also apps for doing it (which can search even for deleted ones but you probably lose the filename). John |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 9346 |
My goto has been Puppy Linux, booted from a USB stick. It can delve into the parts of a Windows FS that Microsoft try to "protect" from you with impunity. Consequently it can copy files from areas the Windows has hidden them in onto backup media or a different partition of the disk. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4398 |
In case Windows thinks they're deleted, an app like photorec can recover many (not just images - you can select the kinds of files it should find). Such apps are better run ASAP as things don't get better if the hdd is in use. Preferably remove the hdd and install as an extra (not in use) drive e.g. in SATA caddy or via SATA-to-USB device. You need another destination (hdd/usb/...) for what the app finds. John Edited 2026-11-13 20:54 by JohnS |
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| palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2059 |
Thanks for the suggestions. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 10125 |
I was going to link to this very video, but it is an AI slop YouTube video and channel, and I prefer NOT to link to AI generated videos that PRETEND to be a human like this one does. Note the TINY "AI" text, just above the channel avatar that YT now put on AI generated videos. Could YT POSSIBLY have made that AI tag any SMALLER?! (rhetorical) AI channel not withstanding, the information is valid. EDIT: Although this video explains what you can do to circumvent f-ing MS update from resetting delete time defaults etc and basically hosing your files in the background without asking you, the HOOPS you have to jump through to stop MS Update from potentially doing this crap, is yet ANOTHER reason to outright DROP Windoze at this point. If you have Windoze-only software that will not run in Linux or there are no Linux versions, there are still solutions to that. I am one of those guys - my CAD software is Windoze ONLY, and there are no Linux versions, and when I asked if they ever WOULD do Linux versions, their answer was a firm "No." So, with that in mind, there were a few options - run them under something like WINE or PlayOnLinux, but in those Windoze emulated Linux apps, my CAD software was unstable and kept crashing. I can't have that when your CAD work represents HUNDREDS of hours all up - it MUST be stable. As I could not get them to run under emulation, a small VM solved all the problems. I just setup a Windoze 8 Pro 64-bit VM under Linux, and put my CAD into that. Because the VM is as small an install as I could make it, and it runs entirely inside RAM, it is blisteringly fast and STABLE, and does all I need it to do for my Windoze-only CAD. I know some of you hate Win8 very intently, but I really don't mind it ONCE YOU NUKE THE METRO GUI and put back a standard START menu using something like Classic Shell. I also had a spare license key for Win8 Pro x64, so I was able to use that to activate the Win8 VM and everything is perfectly legal and happy. Naturally, I keep several backup copies of the VM file itself, of different backup mediums. Win8 runs very happily on as little as 4GB of RAM for a dedicated CAD-only setup like this(NO other software installed other then the OS and the CAD), and being Win8, I have ZERO of these problems with the more modern versions of Windoze. The Win8 VM is denied access to the Internet in the VM setup. Edited 2026-11-14 11:42 by Grogster Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 1583 |
I may be mistaken, but wasn't there a solution where you could run a stripped-down Windows environment locally as a VM and then run the programs there? The program's user interface, input, and output would then be displayed on the Linux screen, similar to Citrix or RDSH? Edit (I hope this Video is not AI generated) Winboat: Run Any Windows App on Linux! Edited 2026-11-15 02:00 by Martin H. 'no comment |
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| palcal Guru Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2059 |
My daughter is mainly concerned about her lost photos. I did a search on WINDOWS(C:) searching for ".jpg" It came up with a lot of photos with a thumbnail of the print but the file path is wrong. Does the fact that there is a thumbnail of the photo mean it is still somewhere. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
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phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3436 |
Not necessarily. I think the thumbnails were saved by Windows last time the photo folder was accessed so they could be displayed faster next time the folder is accessed. Using a Puppy Linux boot disk may give you a better chance of finding them, if they still exist, than through Windows. If their names have been deleted from the FAT (or it's NTFS equivalent) an Un-Delete tool may be able to find their data on the drive if nothing has been written over it. |
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