Two days ago I did the free upgrade from Windows 7 to 10. Everything went smoothly. Office needed to be re-activated, but a quick and painless phone call to Microsoft Live help got that squared away without issue.
Yesterday I finished “polishing” up the install, fine tuning my start menu and classic shell appearance exactly as I like it. It was all perfect. I logged off last night and put the computer to sleep.
Today I logged in and everything is gone. All my documents, all my settings, everything. It’s as if I just bought a brand new computer and turned it on for the very first time.
I called back to phone support, but tech didn’t have the first clue what happened. (Which she admitted maybe 40 minutes into the call.)
I see new user profiles under C:\Users that are sort of similarly named to the actual profiles I use, and i’m pretty sure they weren’t there before.
I checked for any automatic updates last night, but the most recent update was when I manually installed VLC player yesterday afternoon. Nothing since then.
Does anyone have any idea what might have happened to me, or what I can do to fix this? Or maybe where I can go to get help?
Restart, and then make sure that you are logging into the correct account. In some cases, Win 10 will create a new local account during installation and log you automatically during startup.
There are only two accounts to log in on. Both of them have lost all their documents and settings, as if both were wiped clean with factory default settings.
Ellis Dee:
Sorry to hear about your troubles with 10. Far, far from an expert here, but it smells like an issue with “Edge”. No clue how to fix, sorry… But perhaps it may get you pointed in the right direction.
Welcome to Win 10 hell, your troubles have just begun. I regret the day I “upgraded”.
Because you did have an update, a system restore point was probably established. Can you not just restore the computer to that time? (settings - update and security - recovery and backup)
I don’t think a simple system restore is the answer. For all practical purposes, the OP didn’t UPDATE the operating system, he/she reformatted to an entirely NEW operating system. Any restore point that is initiated would be based upon the date the new OS was installed. If it didn’t work from the get-go, a normal restore point would be ineffective, IMHO.
To offer perspective on how annoying it is to lose all your settings, for the past hour or two I’ve been focused on making this blank profile minimally functional.
It took me around 20 minutes of fiddling with ClearType settings in both Windows 10 and Firefox just to make websites (like this one) comfortably readable.
Adding this link here because I half expect that when I log in tomorrow, all my bookmarks/settings/preferences will be gone again. I can always find my way back to the SDMB.
From googling around, it seems the best solution is to create a new user profile, then transer the files from the corrupted profile to the new one.
I created a new profile. Then I logged out of my profile, and…
Yeah, my computer is now a doorstop. It doesn’t turn on, just a black screen with that circular “in progress” display thing.
I would strongly advise that if anyone is thinking of upgrading to Windows 10 in the near future, think long and hard before you do. At this point in time, it looks like my best bet is to buy a whole new computer.
I’m typing this message with my old computer, which I dug out of mothballs. It’s running XP, which is nice. Unlike Windows 10, XP actually works.
When I “upgraded” to 10 from 8.1, I got that black screen with that circular “in progress” display thing several times. Just let it grind. It took literally hours and hours for it to get through whatever it was doing, but it was in fact doing stuff. The problem is, there’s no “progress” meter, so you can’t tell if it crapped out or is actually doing something useful. I encourage you to continue to let it grind away – even overnight if necessary.
Good luck. It’s a scary ride no matter how you do it. Mine did turn out all right in the end, so maybe yours will, too.
This may be the dumbest message on the board so go easy on me, please. I’m running Windows 8. I had a somewhat similar situation last Friday night when Windows installed some update that completely trashed my computer. When I tried to boot up it kept running in an endless loop saying it was diagnosing the problem and then flashing some message so fast I couldn’t even read it, then saying it was diagnosing. I finally just had to plug in my recovery drive and completely reformat.
I know that’s either (a)totally obvious and no help at all or (b)no consolation when you’re going to lose everything, but at least you may be able to get the computer operable again.
ETA: Immediately after the reformat, I turned off all Windows updates and installed GWX Control Panel to make sure the computer never even thinks about updating the OS.
Does this have anything to do with the Admin account? Were you in admin then but not now? Can you log off and back into admin? (Alt-Ctrl-del/ switch users)
Just an idea and I don’t think it will make it any worse.