Microsoft pulls Windows 10 October 2018 Update after reports of documents being deleted

Utpe



If that happens, and assuming the files are still accessible, loading up something like Linux Mint v19 from a USB boot, will allow you access to the hard drive to copy your important data off of it (like family pictures/videos and the like). that's what I did when I wiped my sisters laptop not long ago as her Windows install was pretty much shot and it took forever to boot and had errors etc etc. but as a general rule... it's best to backup any important data in general as I figure, at the minimum, one should have at least two copies of there 'can't afford to lose' kind of data on two different hard drives (i.e. say your main computers boot drive and another hard drive(preferably external since it gives extra protection this way from viruses etc)). this gives one a reasonable level of protection from data loss like from hardware failure etc because say your primary boot drive dies, you would still have the backup copy on another hard drive (or of you prefer a USB thumb drive etc(basically point is, to have at least one other copy besides your main copy at bare minimum)). people who don't at least do this level of minimum are just asking for trouble and sadly, since many are lazy or don't think it will happen to them, end up paying a steep price and reality sets in that their data is permanently gone. but anyways...

basically I connected a external hard drive to the laptop and used that Linux Mint v19 boot USB to copy the data from her laptops hard drive to a external hard drive I have so then I could wipe the laptops drive and start fresh.

also, about the cloning... like I was saying, Clonezilla is great for making a image file of your boot device and storing it on another hard drive etc as even if your install goes to crap out of no where it will be able to restore things to EXACTLY how they where at the time you imaged it. when I say EXACTLY I mean EXACTLY in that any new data you added since the time you made the image will be deleted once you restore the data in the image file. so say you image it right now, and then download some files and use your computer like usual over a few weeks, and then say a virus hits your computer and takes out your Windows install on the boot drive, if you restore that image file you made with Clonezilla, all of the stuff you did in those few weeks will be like it never happened since the boot drive will be restored to the EXACT state it was when you image it (basically it wipes whatever is on that boot drive and puts it back to EXACTLY like it was when you imaged it). I make images occasionally with Clonezilla as I got a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD and I can easily image that and store the image on one of my other hard drives. with that said... like I say, Clonezilla is not super easy to use (I suspect for those computer challenged types might find it a bit confusing) but it's not difficult once you learn the basics of what it's doing it's easy enough. hell, I even use Clonezilla once in a while to backup my laptops boot drive (which is a Intel 545s 128GB SSD which I currently have Linux Mint v19 on it) to either a SD card (that SD port built into the laptop) or connect it to the ethernet port and, using Samba shares to Windows 10, clone the drive to a image file and transfer it over the Samba share to my main Windows 10 PC. so basically... Clonezilla images my laptops hard drive and stores the image on my main PC's hard drive (I have a samba share setup on Windows 10 so Clonezilla can access it) using my router to transfer the data. I use a physical wired connection since it's faster than using wireless. but I still got one of those older routers, the data transfer rate can't exceed 10-11MB/s over the network samba connection. so it will be faster using hard drive to hard drive transfers, but this type of stuff (storing image through samba share or to a SD card etc) is a option though if needed.



You got screwed as you should NOT have done that as you just chucked $100-ish in the toilet!

once Windows 10 is activated on the PC, which happens after the free upgrade process, it should be for the life of the PC even after completely wiping the drive and clean installing Windows 10 on it!

so as long as you don't change any major hardware (like motherboard etc) it should automatically activate on that PC after you clean install Windows 10. like when you clean install Windows 10 from scratch, just skip the CD Key section (I think the option is something like 'I don't have a key' during the install process) and once you go into the Windows 10 desktop like usual when it's up and running it will automatically activate without you doing anything (assuming your connected to the internet of course). you can check your activation status by typing in 'activation' in the 'type here to search' and it should show 'activation settings' and load that up and on that screen you should see something like, "Windows is activated with a digital license". that's what you should see if you did the free upgrade process stuff. if you used a cd key, it might be a bit different as I am not sure since I never used any cd key on any of the Windows 10 computers I have etc.

p.s. hell, I think one can still get free activation of Windows 10 as apparently one could at least as of July 2018 (a article I seen online) as I personally did it in Dec 2017 when I got a used laptop, I wiped the drive and installed Win 7 Pro etc (see following text as here is exactly what I did...). but basically... if you can install Windows 7 (preferably pro version so you can get Win10 pro) to a computer (skip the CD key stuff), then use Windows Loader v2.2.2 by Daz (SHA1 hash of .exe = 0efc35935957c25193bbe9a83ab6caa25a487ada (I posted this SHA1 hash because there are fakes out there loaded with a bunch of junk which you don't want on your computer as if your SHA1 hash matches that, you know you got the proper version without the junk in it)) to activate Windows 7, reboot, check your Windows 7 activation status(assuming it's activated you can then proceed), then use the 'Upgrade' option from the official Microsoft tool for Windows 10 (i.e. www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 ) and after that's done check and see if Windows 10 is activated. if it's activated, you can then use a Windows 10 USB boot device to wipe the drive and start clean and that's that. free Windows 10 NOTE: Windows Loader v2.2.2 is only about 4MB in size in extracted/usable form. but I compressed it with .7z and it shrinks down to only about 1.5MB so it's easy to obtain.

NOTE: it's best to use that Windows Loader v2.2.2 just after you clean install Windows 7 SP1 x64 Pro before any updates because the built-in Microsoft anti-virus (Windows Defender etc) will claim it's a virus when it's not but I don't think it will complain at all as long as you do the activation before you update stuff on Windows 7. this can be worked around though if you stumble into this. also, that Windows Loader works great as Windows 7 functions 100% normal (I had no problems using Windows 7 for years with that Windows Loader method) to as all it basically does is fool Windows 7 into thinking you got a legitimate activation and when you upgrade to Windows 10, since Windows 10 will think your Windows 7 activation is legitimate, it will activate and at this point Windows 10 is legitimately activated on your PC and you won't need to use Windows Loader v2.2.2 again on that computer anymore and can do all the future clean installs all you want (just skip the cd key section during installation) without issue using your standard official Windows 10 ISO boot USB device etc. currently they offer 17134.1 using the official Microsoft tool but I suspect will be some version of 17763 soon once they get the flaws fixed with that recent data deletion problem for a small amount of users etc.



Yeah, Flash sucks. it always did, but in the past we were forced to deal with it because not all that long ago it was still too important to not have installed because too many sites required it etc. but that seems to be going away, thankfully, in recent memory.

I don't even have it installed on Firefox, which has been my primary browser for years (well, between that and Pale Moon x64 but I dumped Pale Moon earlier this year). I have not had Flash installed on my PC for I want to say roughly 2-3 years now (well technically, in Windows 10, Microsoft Edge has enabled by default but you can disable it in it's 'Settings > Advanced > Use Adobe Flash Player' section by switching it from ON to OFF (I am currently running Windows 10 Pro x64 build 17763.104 (i.e. 1809 (October 2018 Update)). your probably no newer than 17134.xxx (i.e. 1803 (March 2018)) but I would imagine the basic process for disabling Flash in Edge is similar)).