“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,” says Microsoft on its support site for Windows Update. The fact is, many presumed the Windows 10 October 2018 Update would launch at the Surface event but would be rolled out a week later. It was only during the last month of September that Microsoft released the RTM build 17763 on preview. For some reason, the company seems to have rushed through the final stages of this release. Whether that’s true or not, there’s no denying the October 2018 Update has been plagued by problems. On Thursday, we discussed a known issue with the Task Manager in the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. Microsoft says the flaw causes the Task Manager to incorrectly report CPU usages. This was reported in the known issues of Windows 10 preview build 17763. That same day, reports pointed to an issue with the manual update for Windows 10 October 2018 Update. Specifically, the update was deleting personal user files such as images and document. It is this problem that led to Microsoft pausing the roll out of Windows 10 version 1809.
What to Do
Of course, plenty of people have already manually updated. Yesterday we provided a method for recovering lost files by using a program called Recuva. Alternatively, this whole episode highlights why backing up Windows before a major update is important. Either way, Microsoft is now pointing affected users to contact the company. Furthermore, Redmond says if you have the manual update “please don’t install it and wait until new media is available.” As mentioned, Microsoft has not said when the October 2018 Update will be available again.
