Windows auto update has hidden my files/favorites!

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Usually in the evening I wake up my sleeping PC by tapping the keyboard or moving the mouse, and it fires right up and I go about my business.

 

Tongight I woke it up, and I had to enter my password. Turns out there was an automatic Windows update at 3 this morning, forcing a reboot. Bad news is that all of my files that used to reside on the desktop disappeared from view. I found them - they're actually in the desktop folder buried in my personal user data folder, where Windows always used to look for them to display them on the visible desktop area - but it's no longer displaying them on the visible desktop area.

 

Likewise, my MSIE favorites are no longer showing up in MSIE (although they still exist in the Favorites folder in my personal user data folder).

 

I would do a system restore, except that apparently this was a critical update. Not something I'm anxiou to undo.

 

So what's the deal? How do I go about getting my files/favorites to show up where they used to?

[Bud]

Don't have an answer but another pin in the Bill Gates voodoo doll for those D@#& automatic updates.

[Nice n Easy Rider]

Mitch,

Since you know where the files are it seems to me that you should be able to open that folder, and then drag the files you're interested in out onto the desktop. It seems that all that the Microsoft update did was to bundle a bunch of files that were loose on the desktop into a folder. I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to move them back.

[MT Wallet]

I feel your pain Mitch. I just switched to Windows 7 and just allowed a blanket update (67 of em) and had pretty much had the same issue. My wife did the correction( don't tell her she's smarter on the computer than I am) by a system restore.We went back and selectively allowed updates.

[SageRider]

Mitch,

Sounds like a corrupted User Profile.

Try turning off the computer, unplug from AC / remove battery. Let sit for a minute. Then reconnect power and turn on. See if this resolves issue.

I don't know why this often will self repair the profile when a simple shutdown or restart won't, but this does work in many cases.

 

 

[lkraus]

Are you sure you logged in with the correct profile? This sounds like maybe you are logged in as another user, so Windows is not displaying "your" desktop.

 

If you are using the correct profile, I'm with SageRider - the User Profile is corrupted.

 

Larry

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

When it pretended I had never run MS Outlook before - it wanted me to set up my email access, and if I had followed through, no doubt it would not have displayed my existing email files - I decided to roll back the update.

 

Everything was fine after that, and then at 3 AM this morning it reapplied the critical update, this time with no problems at all. Everything is fine now.

 

Weird...

[SageRider]

Mitch,

Not wierd.

Not that uncommon either.

I have seen several times related to Windows updates.

What I suggested above is the first repair attempt and works in most cases.

What you performed (System Recovery, then re-apply updates)

is the next repair attempt, and works in the cases where the power cycle did not.

 

Each user / logon account on a Windows PC has a separate profile.

 

What happened was you had a "temporary" profile load when your normal user profile did not load.

 

A temporary profile is equivalent to the profile a new user would receive. So no customized desktop. No data files. No Outlook, either configuration or emails/contacts.

 

The original profile is still there, it is just not being used.

 

The 2 steps above, in my experience, have always recovered a user profile when the cause is related to the installation of a Windows Update patch.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

MWhat happened was you had a "temporary" profile load when your normal user profile did not load.

 

A temporary profile is equivalent to the profile a new user would receive. So no customized desktop. No data files. No Outlook, either configuration or emails/contacts.

 

The original profile is still there, it is just not being used.

 

So why was I able to log on using my password? Wouldn't a temp profile not have any password at first?

[SageRider]

Your User Name and Password are part of your user account, not your user profile.

Access is controlled through user accounts.

User Profiles are typically created the first time a user logs onto a system. The temporary profile you experienced is the same profile which would load for a new first time user.

User Profiles typically contain your settings and data.