photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

This morning Microsoft gave me a totally new windows experience. They "upgraded" my Windows 10, kept my programs, but deleted all of my files -- including all of my photos for August. I always back up on the 1st of the month, which came a day too late. Thankfully, there were no photo on there of any value, but I lost all of them.

BACK UP YOUR FILES IMMEDIATELY.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Make sure they are not hidden.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

where would they be hidden? I back up directly to the computer without using someone else's filing system

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

In Windows Explorer>View>Show hidden files. There are two kinds of hidden files: data and system. The other day, I noticed most of my documents folder had disappeared only to find them to have been hidden. Has to be malware because the files are have the hidden bit turned off. All my files were there but hidden. They showed up when I clicked on hidden files. System files are all over the place and are needed for the system and programs. You can ignore so that is why we click to hide files.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Shortly after 10 came out, they upgraded me from 7 without my permission. I complained, they fixed it relatively promptly and nothing was lost. You might try contacting them.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

it's now called "Files Explorer" and I did the View > Show hidden files and I can't find anything

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

I preach, rant and cajole almost anyone, any time I can and at all times to back up every night at a minimum and to employ both cloud and local backups. Once you set it up it is, at least for me, completely unobtrusive (scheduled for 3 a.m.). There is a small cost associated with this, of course. Upon anyone's reasonable review, though, it is very inexpensive insurance against a loss that is usually seen as anywhere from very bad to unacceptable.

I suspect the OP's files are actually recoverable but any OS update/upgrade runs a risk and Windows more than the others simply because of the astronomical diversity that Microsoft has to cope with as compared to, for example, Apple (Mac). Since you can't be certain not to encounter a Windows upgrade off-schedule the most prudent course of action is what I recommend. Next best is to disable automatic Windows updates so that you have a chance to do your backups before allowing the update. But if you disable the automatic update you increase the already substantial risk of a new hunk of malware that Microsoft is trying to protect you from.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Ouch. Hope you find everything.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

This is why I use carbonite instead. It backs up offsite in real time. It saves deleted files for thirty days too.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Windows 10 recently did a major update of my system. No problem at all, other then the time lost waiting for it to take place.
I would contact Microsoft if I were you.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

What method are you using for automatic back ups? Is there not a danger in automatic backups of having previously backed up good files overwritten by corrupted files? That actually happened to me once back 15 years ago or so. Something went wrong at the Linux server, I don't remember what, and all of the files for a few dozen websites were corrupted. The automatic backup then overwrote the previously saved good files with the corrupted versions (at 3 am) before we knew there was a problem. Fortunately, I had manually done backups and written them to CDs periodically, for which I was ridiculed by co-workers. Until the crash.

Mike

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I restarted my computer (from the restart setting) and my old desk top appeared and my old files reappeared with them. Why was I told that I would have a "new windows experience"? I don't know, but I am in the process of backing up my photos for August right now.

Why did I restart the computer? I felt like the old lady at the funeral home. She looked into the coffin and loudly said, "give him some chicken soup." She repeated that a number of time, getting louder and louder. Finally the funeral director came up to her and she told him, "Give him some chicken soup." The director said, "Madame, it won't help." To which she replied, "Well, it won't hurt."

I figured restarting the computer wouldn't hurt -- and it helped. I am backing up just make sure it's not a fluke.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

They did that to me too. I had a system drive that was cached with a write back cache (for performance reasons), and after the "upgrade" was complete, the drive would not boot, nor could I roll-back the Win10 install, and the boot sector Master Boot Record and partition table were completely mangled. A call to Microsoft to ask them to fix the problem they created and I did not ask for, resulted in a request to charge my credit card $450 - to fix the problems.

I told them to get lost and I fixed it myself. Still running Win7Pro just out of spite.

I do not keep ANY data on my system/boot drive, ever. Everything is stored on separate media. System drive only has programs and OS.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Windows Explorer.

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

👍❗️
Why did you say "instead"?
Yes, real time is OK, offers maximum protection but the performance hit is sometimes important. I use Mac's TimeMachine for local backup, triple redundancy, one per hour. My cloud backup is overnight.

Carbonite saved my lawyer brother's computer once. Good stuff.

One of the reasons a user might want to back up less often than in real time is that email archives can get very big and if you have email running all the time - as many do - then either it is not getting backed up or it is busy uploading to the backup server constantly. I turn my email program off at the end of the day so as to make backup feasible. This is a user-specific and program-specific issue and there is no single right answer.