How to recover data lost with Windows 10 update

The latest Windows 10 update brings with it some issues, including some documents disappearing from the desktop. Here's how to fix it

It's making people discuss yet another bug caused by a Windows 10 update, KB4532693 released in early February to fix 99 security holes in the operating system, which on the computers of many users has caused serious inconvenience.

After installing the update file, in fact, many have complained about the disappearance of files and folders placed on the desktop and the resetting of the Start menu, which is returned to default settings by erasing any customization made over time by the user. Microsoft has admitted that it is aware of these problems and that its engineers are working to solve them. But, in the meantime, the problems remain and there are users who have lost important data they had placed on the desktop. How to recover this data? There are two ways, one suggested by Microsoft itself and the other discovered by users.

Why data disappears after Windows 10 update

We start from the problem and its cause, which have been identified already by users quite quickly: during the installation of update KB4532693 Windows 10 creates a temporary user profile where it places all the user's data and that, at least in theory, should be deleted at the end of the installation, right after the transfer of data from the temporary profile to the user's real one. But sometimes this doesn't happen and the user ends up with a zeroed desktop and start menu.

How to recover data deleted by update KB4532693

The simplest solution to this bug in update KB4532693 is to create a new local user profile and try to import the data from the temporary profile that was left on the hard disk by copying it and then deleting the local account. Some users, however, have fixed the bug by going to c:Users and looking for a folder with their name and the extension .000 or .bak. That very folder contains their profile, so sometimes just removing the temporary extension is enough to make the user's real local profile active again. Other times, however, you just need to restart the operating system over and over until Windows itself can restore the lost account.