Microsoft should be totally ashamed - W10 uninvited massive 2 hour update is CR#P

Jivesinger

If you want the Restore Previous Versions to work on a right-click, then you'd need to switch on File History*, which backs up your user documents and files to an attached external drive.
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/55162-file-history-turn-off-windows-10-a.html

File History is not without flaws though - it only includes certain folders, using Libraries, which I never bothered to fully understand, and would be no help in 'Anniversary-Update-Broke-my-computer' type scenarios because it doesn't backup the Windows system files.

For a system backup you'd want to use a product which backs up the whole computer some of which have been mentioned already. (Not sure if Macrium Reflect Free got mentioned? That's what I use.)

* apart from system files. But you'd hardly ever want to restore a previous version of a single system file in any case as all the files are usually interdependent.

agarnett

Interesting stuff.

I looked yesterday and have just been looking again. I appear to have no previous versions available for anything and only the single system restore point which was for Sunday afternoon to go back to an unknown "Critical Update"

When I was Googling previous versions as suggested by AndyPix a day ago, I did find some pros discussing why they couldn't view previous versions also (but that was in respect of Windows 2008 Server or similar I think). They were playing with geek only command line interrogations to make previous versions visible.

AndyPix

If you have 2 partitions then you can configure one to use the other for file history - and vice versa


You can tell it to include any location that you see fit - Not just libraries


As stated by Jivesinger, this would have been no use to you in your original situation though, and you should take a proper backup of your machine.


To dust off an old chestnut : Its best to have one and not need it, rather than need it and not have it

agarnett

First, I am guessing that the reason I cannot see any previous versions for anything is because I've never switched File History on.

But VSS is on by default is it not? The W10 Anniversary Update is essentially a new O/S on my machine. It seems it isn't recognising that a previous version of W10 existed, one which no doubt updated itself daily with all manner of Critical and not so Critical Updates for the first year of this laptop's life. All trace of those updates is gone.

Is that why I only have a single available restore point at the moment - it thinks W10 was only installed on Sunday morning, and thereafter it recognised a Critical Update of some sort which in this version of Windows is not detailed for me to identify in terms of its purpose or its update number?

What I can see today is that the list of programs and drivers that would be deleted and would need to be reinstalled if I was now to roll back to that particular restore point has now grown like topsy, most of them being printer drivers I have never used, and a huge bunch of Microsoft (Modem) drivers. Yet I can only remember manually updating one program yesterday - Skype when I was checking that my Webcam still worked - I'll need that for a meeting this week). Skype opened ok but immediately suggested downloading an update which I did.

Today I manually updated Kaspersky Lab's database earlier as I had opened the Kaspersky Labs App, and amber/yellow warnings suggested it was out of date (its possible the latest database was released after the daily automatic update executed last night on my machine, and that I just stumbled upon it before it auto updated tonight?).

Anyway, another interesting one that would be deleted if I rolled back to wherever I may have been at on Sunday afternoon sometime after Windows Anniversary Update had already finished, is the Windows 10 Update Assistant 1.4.9200.1754! I don't recall manually installing that either, much less being assisted by it!

I note at the bottom of that list (I saw these in a much shorter list yesterday so they were probably the earliest changes within the current session) two Windows Updates - KB3189031 for Adobe Flashplayer, and another "Package" update KB3176936 which receives commentary on the net suggesting it fixes an issue associated with insufficient disk space (does stockton need to check that out before he risks trying to Upgrade w10 with only 75GB headroom? ).

It's largely academic now, but is one of those two Windows updates the "Critical Update" which caused the single restore point do we think?

So 'System Protection' claims to be on, although I note it has allocated itself only 3GB maximum out of the 300GB available for whatever restore point data it is backing up.

I am not sure if both System Protection and File History are part of VSS or if they are three separate but linked features ...

I will check out 'File History' some more, but I am intrigued that I appear to still have Backup and Restore Windows 7 as a Control Panel Option, even though the W10 is now upgraded to Redstone 1, and even though this laptop only ever came with W8.1 and I upgraded it to W10 straight out of the box last year. Control Panel never the less invites me to set it up! Seems a bit confusing, although I suppose if it can be used to restore files from another machine, that could be useful for some users.

Anyway, thanks for the pointers to how I might use an external drive quite straightforwardly for routine Backup.

Two last questions on that -

• I read that any old files which may originally have been formatted as FAT will not be backed up - is that even if they are sitting now on my W10 ReFS(NTFS) drives?
• And the last question - my available external drive capacity is slightly less than the total in use currently in my W10 machine across both partitions, but a lot of that used capacity is of course OS and Program Files. So do I only need external drive capacity sufficient to back up my personal documents on ? What else gets routinely backed up in File History ?

I guess the best suggestion is to try it and see.

AndyPix

agarnett wrote: »

Two last questions on that -

• I read that any old files which may originally have been formatted as FAT will not be backed up - is that even if they are sitting now on my W10 ReFS(NTFS) drives?
• And the last question - my available external drive capacity is slightly less than the total in use currently in my W10 machine across both partitions, but a lot of that used capacity is of course OS and Program Files. So do I only need external drive capacity sufficient to back up my personal documents on ? What else gets routinely backed up in File History ?

I guess the best suggestion is to try it and see.

1. Files are not formatted - Drives are, you have an NTFS system, which the files live on.
- What you have read is that previous versions will not work with drives formatted in FAT
In your situation, you need not worry about this.


2.You need sufficient storage to store whatever it is you want to back up.
As a starting point i would set it up to backup your data drive, this is your "irriplaceable" stuff.
You can always put a fresh install over the top of a lost c drive, it is your data that is most important.


That being said, if it were me, i would want a full backup of the computer which would allow me to restore from bare metal.
Its just easier that way if it hits the fan, and is very easy to do.


Dont confuse the backup with file history.


My advice to you, as you sound like you have plenty of room, is to turn on file history and have the c: drive shadow to the d: and vice versa.
Then if you lose a file, delete a folder by mistake or save a wrong version over the top of one etc etc, it is easily fixed with a couple of clicks

agarnett

Thanks AndyPix.

When I read that article or commentary about no backup of FAT files, what you have confirmed is what I also understood, but File Systems and Protocols and Compression being as layered as they can be/have been over the years, I wasn't sure if a file could retain data identifying its original storage format.

Actually I see now I read it on one of the links you gave me above - the language was just slightly ambiguous: "(Note that it will not back up Program Files, any files formatted in the FAT file system, ..."

Anyway ... we've done that one to death now.

So you've also stated that default W10 drives are NTFS drives but as you can see, since Sunday I have picked up suggestion of ReFS (Microsoft's many years in development "Resilient File System") in W10.

I see that it may well be a format option in W10, but looks not to be available in Home Edition, so we can skip that now too!

Interesting articles can be found too about pools and "Storage Spaces" enabling RAID like storage and mirrors, but that looks overly complex for home use and again may be a W10 Pro feature only (although there is a W10 Home Edition Control Panel page for it - my existing partitions alone are not suitable apparently - perhaps if I attached an external drive it might wake up the feature. I've tried USB sticks - they don't wash.

I have just tried to set a folder on as my File History folder but it won't allow me to do that. It does however allow me to set a USB stick as the File History folder and to turn on File History ... it is currently "saving copies of your files for the first time" so will be interesting to see just what it thinks it needs to save ... I won't hold my breath - the USB stick is only 15GB!

Last_Person

Some files are formatted but that shows how much I know:beer:

agarnett

Last_Person wrote: »

Some files are formatted but that shows how much I know:beer:

I am sure you are right, but that's how much I know too :beer:

Now then, while I had skipped off to muse over the BA IT glitch in another thread (I wonder if that was W10 upgrade related ) my W10 File History feature had neatly saved my files to my 16GB USB stick ... which is quite a feat since I have over ten times that in files to save!

So - what did it really save?

Well it didn't save anything from my partition, I can tell you that for starters! (that's where all my main files are!)

Sadly, there seems to be no option to tell File History that it needs to backup anywhere other than the library folders and contacts it finds in the default locations on C: drive. It found 7GB of stuff I had downloaded but not filed elsewhere and declared itself complete! Oh and it saved my Desktop and lots of desktop.ini files it found in empty folders

But I have a cunning plan

I shall now proceed to try to redefine my libraries to include some folders on my drive and then see if that will do the trick ... watch this space

Edit: Yep that seems to work, but now I need to choose something bigger than a 16GB USB stick to back up to ... strangely however, its been running five minutes now and hasn't yet complained about lack of space .... spooky!

Still going after maybe 10 mins .... is it using some kind of fantastic compression??

Oh hang on ... the USB activity light has stopped ...

... and started again just long enough to give me an operating system activity centre notification that the drive was full and I might like to deselect some folders for back up!

Pressing the issue, as I do, I clicked "Run Now" again and have a slightly different OS notification in the Activity Centre - this one says I need to choose a different File History drive because of limitations of my existing File History drive's file system ---- ah yes the old "know your limits" chestnut

jmc160

@agarnett, sorry I disappeared, sick kids etc.. you know how it is I won't go back and carry on our original discussion as I'm sure neither of us want to go down that rabbit hole again, but I just saw your mention of the "backup and restore (Windows 7)" option in control Panel. I think I can clear this up for you...

That backup/restore option is a full backup feature, as in it'll take a proper backup of the entire drive contents, as opposed to File history which will, as you've already found out, only look at user libraries. The backup/restore tool was deprecated and (iirc) removed from Win8/8.1 but is back in W10. I have the same wording on my system too...

It appears that since they've brought it back, I'm guessing it's either the same tool as was in win7 or it has the same features as before. If you have any Windows 7 backups, created by that same tool in win7, then you can use the W10 tool to restore from those backups, should you need to. I think they're just trying to make it more obvious that it's the same tool as appeared in Win7.

More importantly though, the tool is fully featured for W10 and can be used to both backup and restore your current system if that's what you want to use. Although as others have said, File History may be more important as you can always just install fresh.

On that subject, did you say the W10 installation you had before the AU was a free upgrade from Win8? If so, I'd recommend at some point you might want to give it a fresh install anyway. I know it's a pain especially given the issues you've had and the work you've put in to get it going again, but with Windows OS's it's always better to have a clean install rather than an upgrade. This goes way back and I'm confident it hasn't changed

agarnett

Hope the kids are on the mend, jmc160!

Funny you should mention it, but only an hour or two ago I found myself yet again back at that Windows 7 Backup and Restore feature and thought - funny - I don't think I was taking any legacy route to get there! But when faced with something like that, and you know that W10 Anniversary Update is more or less a full new OS but not quite, it kind of sits there like a "Danger - Deep Water" sign behind a normal fence, where you can't actually see what is behind the sign but you wonder if it is safe even to climb over the fence for a quick peek because you can guess that it might be associated with some long ago abandoned quarry workings and isn't somewhere anyone is supposed to go anymore

So I might now take a look at it since you have kind of shouted out from down in the quarry with a reassuring "c'mon in, the water's lovely" :rotfl:

Yes the laptop came with 8.1 with immediate free upgrade.

systeminfo tells me that I am now on

Microsoft Windows 10 Home
10.0.14393 N/A Build 14393
Standalone Workstation
Multiprocessor Free

It also tells me Five Hotfixes are installed:
KB3176935, 37 & 38 as well as the two mentioned earlier today -
KB3176936 (the Service Stack update - low disk space freeze fix)
KB3189031 (the Adobe FlashPlayer fix which I dyslexically mistyped earlier so have gone back and corrected)

I read that 3176935 is a fix for W10 v1607 compatibility issues on AMD64 machines like mine amongst others
37 is another purporting to be the same thing but issued a day later (a fix for a fix?)
38 is another v1607 freeze fix which itself seems to be beset with "...38 failed to install" errors by many reports on the web.

Hey ho!

Anyway ... so you reckon, jmc160, that I might be advised to do a clean install now? Is that "N/A" in the systeminfo report of OS version a bit of a giveaway of the fact that my 14393 is currently neither one thing nor another ?