Yesterday's Windows Update disaster

[Tom NJ]

I'm running Windows 10 on a seven year old Toshiba laptop, and yesterday's Windows update made huge changes. 80% of my desktop icons and my screen saver disappeared, as did all of my bookmarks in Chrome and my mouse stopped working. In fact most programs didn't recognize me and wanted me to set them up all over again. My data was intact in File Explorer and I had a recent back-up if needed. Really bad timing with the stock market volatility and while still working on my taxes!

With the guidance of my son I shut off automatic Window updates, and then uninstalled yesterdays updates. Thank goodness it worked, restoring me back to before the update. I set a restore point in case it happens again, but I think it is time for a new laptop. I have been reluctant to move to Windows 11 because I an running some very old programs, such a Palm 95 Calendar and Lotus 123. Best to make the change to a new computer while this one is still working.

Anyone else have a problem with this update? Any idea why it hit me so bad?

 

[walterjay]

I did the update yesterday. Running windows 10. All went well with no problems.

 

[mrsilv04]

I haven't seen any issues with any of the work or home laptops.

 

[Patman]

I’m glad that I bought a new (refurbished) computer a few weeks ago with Windows 11 on it, I have been hearing bad things about people using older computers and Windows 10 lately

 

[Pew]

Failed update, it could be anything like a bad device driver but the logs were removed when you did the system restore. 22H2 was the last Win10 version that was released 3 years ago, it's only getting security updates since then.

Overall, it sounds like the update failed for whatever reason and reverted you back to a "new" profile. Did you still have your files on your desktop/documents/downloads after the update?

 

[Tom NJ]

Overall, it sounds like the update failed for whatever reason and reverted you back to a "new" profile. Did you still have your files on your desktop/documents/downloads after the update?

Yes my files were intact in File Explorer - I didn't check Documents and Downloads.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Which update was it specifically?

 

[goblin]

Without more info - it sounds like your windows user profile was messed up and you got in with a new one.
Windows would usually, but not always, warn about this. Some pop up at log on along the lines of "Windows couldn't load your profile, logging you in with a temporary one"

Once you get in with a temporary profile, everything is borked. It's like getting locked out of your car and having to enter through the trunk. Everything is there, but there's some crawling needed to get back behind the wheel.

I am not sure from the wording whether uninstalling the updates got you back to normal, OR loading a restore point. The two are vastly different. It is much less likely in my book that rolling back un update would fix a broken windows profile (although it might, if it had a saved copy of the registry hive), vs loading a restore point (which is like a time machine to a point back in time that worked).

Chances are one or more restarts would have gotten you out of the woods, although they are a bit slim.

One way or the other - a profile gets corrupt mostly by the baggage it carries, rather than the Windows version.

 

[Tom NJ]

Which update was it specifically?

It was a security update but I did not record the number.

 

[Tom NJ]

Without more info - it sounds like your windows user profile was messed up and you got in with a new one.
Windows would usually, but not always, warn about this. Some pop up at log on along the lines of "Windows couldn't load your profile, logging you in with a temporary one"

Once you get in with a temporary profile, everything is borked. It's like getting locked out of your car and having to enter through the trunk. Everything is there, but there's some crawling needed to get back behind the wheel.

I am not sure from the wording whether uninstalling the updates got you back to normal, OR loading a restore point. The two are vastly different. It is much less likely in my book that rolling back un update would fix a broken windows profile (although it might, if it had a saved copy of the registry hive), vs loading a restore point (which is like a time machine to a point back in time that worked).

Chances are one or more restarts would have gotten you out of the woods, although they are a bit slim.

One way or the other - a profile gets corrupt mostly by the baggage it carries, rather than the Windows version.

Sounds like you nailed it - Thanks! I do recall an unusual message when I rebooted yesterday - said something like I needed to log out and re-log in and gave no other choices, so I did. I tried multiple reboots to no avail, and it was the uninstallation of the update that did the trick and got me back to normal. I set a restore point after I was back to normal.

My laptop's 250 GB SSD hard drive is almost full with only 16 GB of free space, so maybe that is a contributing cause. I may need to unload a bunch onto my my 1 TB external hard drive.

 

[Analog-1]

Windows 10 is done in less than 6 months just upgrade to 11.

 

[spackard]

Probably ran out of storage space during the update. Best to wish it into the cornfield.

 

[Hall]

80% of my desktop icons and my screen saver disappeared, as did all of my bookmarks in Chrome and my mouse stopped working. In fact most programs didn't recognize me and wanted me to set them up all over again.

That sounds like a 'user' setting change. Are you sure you logged in as "you" ? A Windows update will not touch your Chrome bookmarks, your desktop icons are user-specific and programs don't recognize you again sounds like a user account hiccup.

 

[Patman]

Probably ran out of storage space during the update. Best to wish it into the cornfield.

I might be one of the very few who get that reference to a classic Twilight Zone episode!
“It’s good that you did that Anthony, real good!!”

 

[terry274]

I might be one of the very few who get that reference to a classic Twilight Zone episode!
“It’s good that you did that Anthony, real good!!”

Was that episode based on the short story "It's A Good Life" by Jerome Bixby? I remember reading that as a teenager. I remember something about Anthony wishing people away...

 

[goblin]

...Are you sure you logged in as "you" ?...

As discussed above - he was not. He was in with a temporary profile. His SID registry entry was renamed to SID.bak and a new SID was created with the same number, that was mostly empty.

The fix is to log in as an administrator, rename the current SID to _anything and then rename the one with the _bak in the name to what it was.

Ex: SID123 gets renamed to SID_bak automatically, and a new SID123 gets created. Get in as admin, rename SID123 to SID123_bad, rename SID123_bak to SID123, log off from admin, log back in as the affected user.

It might or might not work depending on how bad things got borked originally - most of the time it works.

But this is all academic.

 

[Tom NJ]

That sounds like a 'user' setting change. Are you sure you logged in as "you" ?

The message said I had to log out and re-log in, so I did. When re-logging in it did not ask for my Microsoft password, only my four digit pin. I thought that was odd, but then I am no expert in computer/software workings.

 

[Patman]

Was that episode based on the short story "It's A Good Life" by Jerome Bixby? I remember reading that as a teenager. I remember something about Anthony wishing people away...

That’s the one!

 

[Pablo]

Win 11 updated the other day, then yesterday it says it has another update, needs reboot. Huh???

Win 11 with a couple mods is not too much different from Win 10 IF you have plenty of resources.

 

[Tom NJ]

Probably ran out of storage space during the update. Best to wish it into the cornfield.

I suspect you are right. I will buy a new computer, but in the meantime will clear some room on my hard drive as it only has about 6% of free space. I've got some pretty large .exe files in my Download folder - is it safe to delete these?