Windows 20H2 wiped out 90% of my 3rd party programs

C

C.Raven

During the windows update in the last two weeks, the update process removed a large portion of my 3rd party software programs. In working with Microsoft customer support they have run me through re-registering my apps via powershell (only works for apps in the app store), rolling back to a previous build version via recovery process, and finally upgrading in place to the current 20H2 build. NONE of their solutions have worked. I'm talking simple programs like Adobe Acrobat Pro X, Blustacks android emulator, Corel Paintshop Pro X8, Norton 350 (since reinstalled), MS OFFICE 365 even, and countless others. The odd thing is that all of those programs are still listed in my Program Files list (now called Apps and Features) but none of them appear in the Start Menu, nor are any of the associated files located on the system at all. I've checked the 'Windows.old' folder and they're not there either.


A file recovery program also found zero trace of the main support and executable files for the missing programs, so the sectors with the program data have likely been overwritten already. File recovery did find various bits and pieces of the programs in 'Users\name\AppData\...' (name being the account name) and subfolders. Which is expected for those user settings and .dll's to be somewhat more preserved.



All of this poses several questions for me.


1. What caused these programs to be completely obliterated from existence?


2. Are any of these programs recoverable without having to spend hours and hours trying to locate installation files, purchase new software for lost licenses, or otherwise give up trying to recover my data from the lose of these programs?


3. What can I do to prevent future occurrences of this nature? (without breaking the bank on backup drives and software)


4. Where can I send a bill to Microsoft for the time I have spent trying to fix their 'inconvenience' for the losses I have experienced at the hands of their software developers incompetence? (half serious / half sarcasm)


Frankly, this entire situation is beyond utterly frustrating to me and I'm certain that I'm not the first, nor will I be the last customer that this will happen to.


What is Microsoft doing to ensure that customers don't keep losing their data, time, and effort to repair what the developer breaks? When are they going to step up their end user quality when it comes to failed updates and program errors that cause a customer to have to try and repair their systems costing them time, money, and maybe a few hairs on their head that get ripped out?

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