My experience with Win10 updates Version 1809 Build 17763.1

Q

Q-U-I-G-M-O

I used the Media creation tool to download 1809 manually when it was available on Oct. 4, 2018. I used an 8-gigabyte flash to load the 1809 ISO. I chose to do a manual offline upgrade on a Lenovo laptop that was running 1803 version 17134.285


I first made a system image of my hard drive with a third party program (app). I also did a manual backup (by copying files to an external hard drive) of all files I wouldn’t want to lose. I then did a manual restore point with windows system restore. I had a list of 5 restore points time since 1803 had first been installed. I then turned off my third-party anti-virus but did not uninstall it. I disconnected my laptop from all internet connections. I disconnected all external peripherals.


I plugged the flash drive into a USB port and opened the flash drive with File Explorer. From there I just clicked on the setup.exe and the update launched. It asked me if I wanted to check for online updates. I declined and hit next. The upgrade process started. It took a couple of hours to run the entire update. There were at least a couple of shutdowns and restarts along the way but to be honest I wasn’t paying full attention to the process. The update completed normally and the computer booted to my lock screen with a fresh picture displayed.


I had no issue logging into my laptop.


By this time I was starting to get wind of the major problems that were being reported with this update. I had lost nothing from my Documents folder, or any other folder that I could see.


The issues I did run into were my Virtual Machines would not start after the update and some glitches with my home network although all my computers eventually showed up in the Network folder and all shares opened between my home computers. To fix the Virtual Machine issue I had to download the latest Virtual Box software update. Once that was installed my virtual machines ran fine. I also have the notification issue that some have reported with this update. The cure has been shown to be that I need to allow apps to run in the background in the privacy settings. That is an unacceptable solution for me. I will live without notifications until another solution is presented. They were working just fine in 1803.

I checked my networked printers and they printed with no issues. I checked all my browsers and they seem to be working fine. I rarely use Edge but I checked it since there have been reports of problems. It seemed to work fine. I do not use Microsoft Store at all so I do not know if there are any problems there. I have found no issues with any software on that computer. I have Microsoft office 2003 and found no issues with excel and word. That’s about all I use out of the office suite. All my third party software appears to be working. As far as I can tell no drivers were changed. I only use One Drive for a few One Note files and I do not allow anything else to be stored in the cloud. I also do no synchronization between computers. Nothing appeared to be missing or changed in my One Cloud or One Note.



I went through all of my personal settings and it appears nothing was changed using this update method. It doesn’t appear that any new partitions were created on my hard drive. Audio and Video playback still works. I checked my restore points and found all were gone, but a new restore point had been created at the point of starting the upgrade. I assume the upgrade created this restore point before actually doing the upgrade. It was not the restore point I had created before the upgrade. My manual restore point was gone and this was a later timestamp.

One thing I have noticed is that when I looked through the Windows.old folder is that there are only Microsoft programs listed in both Program Files and Program Files (x86). It appears to be all the built-in stuff My Office programs are totally absent. None of my other installed programs are there, either. Also in the Users folder, all folders are totally empty. I am showing all hidden files and there are not any. There is nothing there, period. I believe that if I was to attempt a rollback, as is, I would lose all my installed programs and all my personal data. I have no intention to test this out. I have backups of everything, but this appears to be a major flaw with this update that would lead to devastating results.



I chose to do this upgrade on my terms. As a Win10 Home user, I do not have the option to delay updates without installing Apps or messing in my registry. Due to the problems being reported, Microsoft’s own warnings, and the pulling of the update, I have not attempted to update any other Win10 computers.


I just wanted to post my experience in the hope it will help solve the issues before any more damage is done.


I have not changed my opinion. Win10 should not be used for any critical application. Never another dime Microsoft.

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