Windows 10 Second Try Second Fail

I upgraded my computer’s OS from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 last year when Windows 10 was released. The upgrade went well, but when the computer finished installing the new OS and rebooted for the final time, there were some problems – which I documented here. At that time, I had to rollback the OS to the earlier version; the rollback went off without a hitch. A few programs that are not compatible with Windows 10 had been uninstalled by Windows 10, and they remained absent after the rollback. I got them back by running System Restore and restoring the OS to the point before the upgrade.

So this time, the first thing I did was to create a restore point. Then I went to Windows Update and began the Windows 10 installation. When I installed Windows 10 six months ago, the process took about 45 minutes. This time it took about 75 minutes. The last time I installed Windows 10, everything appeared normal on my screen. A little different, but normal. This time, the first thing I noticed about the new Windows 10 was that my Desktop picture was gone and most of my Desktop icons were gone.

	<< Windows 8.1 Desktop. Some of the icons are links (shortcuts) to programs, but some are folders that contain text and media files.
	<< Windows 10 Desktop after upgrade. The Desktop picture is gone, replaced by the default Windows 10 Desktop. Most of the Desktop icons are also gone.

In addition to these changes to the Desktop, I soon discovered that all my documents and media files were gone. The Documents, Pictures, Videos, and Music folders were empty. I searched for a solution to the missing folders and quickly found a Microsoft blog on which one of their experts explained that the missing files could be found in the old Windows folder, now renamed “Windows.old”. He explained how to get to the old folders and how to copy the contents of the old folders to the new Windows 10 folders. When I followed the instructions, I was able to locate my old Documents, Pictures, Videos, and Music folders. One problem: all of them were empty!

I had enough. If my documents and media were still on my computer’s hard drive, any further tinkering would put them at risk. I decided to rollback my system to Windows 8.1 and, as before, the rollback went smoothly and I recovered all my missing files. The only hitch was when I tried to restore my computer to a point before the upgrade – just to make sure that all my settings were truly restored – I was unable to do a system restore because Windows 10 had deleted all my restore points. But it appeared that, unlike the last time I upgraded, the programs not compatible with Windows 10 were still there after the rollback, so a system restore is probably not needed.

That’s my Windows 10 upgrade experience; tried installing it twice, gave up twice because of problems with the installation. It might be tempting fate to try a third time. But the two installations I tried were so different from each other, it might be interesting to see what a third installation looks like.