Question Weird (to me) Win 10 update problem

[BoomerD]

I let Windows do an update last night. (21H2...19044.1889) After it rebooted, about half my files on the desktop were gone...the clock had the wrong time by 1 hour, even though the time zone was correct, DST setting was correct...and, the "cumulative feature update" doesn't show in any of the update lists.
I still haven't figured out what else might be missing...or how to get things back. I THOUGHT I had the thing set to set restore points...but apparently not. 🙁

I've heard about people having problems with updates...I never have...until now.

(Malwarebytes and Windows Defender all show nothing found)

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm truly beginning to think it's the only way...

F*&$@#$!...I HATE having to wipe and reformat. It will take a while to decide if there's anything left worth saving...and what to reinstall.

I would just take a backup of the Users folder and wipe. Usually, everything is there (including any browser profiles containing bookmarks etc).

 

[Tech Junky]

Wow. I didn't know that still worked. I stopped doing this trick after Windows XP because Microsoft implemented strict security permissions for OS folders.

You're an admin by default when installing so, shouldn't be a permission issue. I just wish I had thought to do it years ago instead of spending hours reinstalling things individually over the years. For some reason I had figured each app installed additional things into system folders. Works well when you don't feel like applying license keys to each app again.

 

[igor_kavinski]

You're an admin by default when installing so, shouldn't be a permission issue.

Unfortunately, since Win7, MS has introduced some OS level users (System / TrustedInstaler and some weird long cryptic users like S0066-6aa554 etc.) that supersede the Admin. Admin on Windows is no longer like root on Linux.

 

[Tech Junky]

OS level

Yeah, there's service accounts to deal with on certain aspects and embedded junk baked into the os. At least it's not apple though where it's really locked down and integrated. I've gotten pretty handy at dismantling things and piecing them back together.