Windows 10 November 2019 Update

[Big Boy]

I happened across this by accident this morning, and am wondering if I'm living on another planet, or other people have had a similar experience/are ignorant.

I have a couple of laptops. One I use for day to day computing, and the other is connected permanently to my TV. The day to day laptop I alternate between battery and mains running.

Today, I missed the low battery warning, and my laptop switched itself off. When I was restoring the system, I had several warnings about the Windows 10 November 2019 Update, and if I did not update by 11th November I would not receive any more security updates. Liking my system up to date, I clicked the screensaver screen (warning has not appeared anywhere else), and a couple of hours later, my system was updated and working again.

Curious, I started looking at the other laptop. Couldn't find any warning. I let the battery fail as per the first laptop. When I restored it, there was the same warning in a couple of places. I have now updated that laptop as well.

So, has this update been notified, and it completely passed me by, or is Microsoft testing us? I'm sharing, in case others are not aware of this apparently important security update.

[Nereus]

Hmm, according to the following the November update has not been released yet!

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/windows-10- ... d-to-know/

[Big Boy]

Hmmmm..... the plot thickens. I've just checked my version, and I'm on Version 1809 installed today. It did take a couple of hours also, not the few minutes advertised.

Maybe the 1809 upgrade was required to receive the 1909 upgrade . Whatever, I wasn't aware of either, and it seemed a very strange way to inform me.

[Big Boy]

I've thought about this a lot, and the warning was actually telling me that my computer needed to be updated to enable it to receive security updates after 11 Nov 2019. So it was telling me to upgrade to 1809 or I'd be dead in the water so far as security upgrades were concerned.

So I guess there may be others out there thinking they are fine, but they aren't. You need to be running 1809 by 11th November if you want to receive security updates.

[Nereus]

1809 is the problem, not the cure:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... -1809.html

[Nereus]

And then there is this:

Microsoft makes a mess of another Windows 10 update by giving it to the wrong users

https://www.techradar.com/news/microsof ... rong-users

The latest version of Windows 10 is the May 2019 Update, version “1903,” which was released on May 21, 2019. Microsoft releases new major updates every six months.

https://www.howtogeek.com/343979/what-i ... indows-10/

[Big Boy]

OK, but the article you posted yesterday suggests 1809 is the version needed to receive the November update. I'm more concerned about the back door approach to informing the need rather than the usual cock-ups every time an update is issued. I fear there are others who may think they're OK, but actually need to take action.

[Nereus]

1809 is history, you should be running 1903, which as posted, was released last May. Also posted is Microsoft's cockup, which may or may not have a bearing on it.

I am the last one that should be commenting on computers, but I subscribe to Windows Secrets, or whatever it's latest incarnation is, and the advice is to set your system NOT to receive automatic updates. At the same time I believe that "security updates" are outside of the normal update procedure and will install as they are issued.

[laphanphon]

For those who have not changed over to Win10, you can still do for free. I just went from Win7 to 10 / version 1909

Go here download tool, follow prompts: http://tiny.cc/an4zhz

1. Go to the Download Windows 10 website.

2. Under Create Windows 10 installation media, click Download tool now and Run.

3. Choose Upgrade this PC now, assuming this is the only PC you're upgrading. (If you're upgrading a different machine, choose Create installation media for another PC, and save the installation files.)

4. Follow the prompts.

5. When the upgrade is complete, go to Settings Update & Security > Activation, and you should see a digital license for Windows 10.

[Gus]

I did the Win 10 upgrade before I came to Hua Hin (23/1) it was pretty OK except the PC would not boot up first time, I did nothing because of my holidays and returned to the UK last week.
When I attempted to cure the start up problem I lost my pictures and music amongst other data things.

Before the update i did a back up USB of my windows 7, should I be able to just put the USB in it's socket, follow instructions and revert to Win 7 complete with my pictures, music etc etc

Presently I can browse the net (Firefox) with bookmarks and still have my email inbox with Thunderbird but no address book, but I am getting by until I can find a better answer. TIA

[buksida]

Reverting to W7 will likely involve formatting the drive which will wipe out everything. The W10 upgrade may have just created a new Windows profile so your data should be in the original one.

I know too late now but it is always good practise to keep anything important off the system drive and on an external hard disk.

[Gus]

Thanks for that buksida. Are any of these data recovery softwares worth trying?

[buksida]

Disk recovery services are usually used if the hard disk has failed.

You could give it a go though with this: https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

But if the data has been overwritten it is gone.

The easiest thing to do would be plugging the drive into a different machine and searching for the files, or booting to a Linux USB stick and doing the same.

[laser]

An in-place upgrade preserved your data, in theory.
But if you made the upgrade with a 'clean' install, you erased the hard disk. In that case partial data recovery might be possible, for sectors that were no overwritten by the installated & rather bulky Win10. But this is not necessary if you made a backup of important files. Win10 supposedly can use a Win7 backup file (Win8 could not) and make a restore.

It's easy to see if your old files exist. Get the portable version of Everything, unzip on a USB stick and run from there.
https://www.voidtools.com/Everything-1.4.1.935.x86.zip
This is a very capable utility, for example can find any document, picture or any type of file, so that you can sort them on creation/modification dates. Obviously, you'd look for files having old dates. Or, if you remember any file name (or part of the name) then will find it - if the file exist.

[Gus]

Thanks for your tips guys, I got in touch with a local PC repair business and he managed to do the trick and recover my images, it seems I now have to get an external hard disk drive now before I have any more problems.