Even After Microsoft’s Fix, Windows 10’s 1809 Update Is Still Botching File Operations

When it was discovered earlier this month that the 1809 build of Windows 10 was deleting user files just because, Microsoft halted the update until the problem was fixed. Shame, then, that another not-as-bad-but-still-bad file overwriting bug has now reared its head.

This post was originally published on October 21 at 12:00pm.

Microsoft Delays Latest Version Of Windows 10 After Reports Of Mass File Deletion Microsoft has temporarily halted the rollout of its October 2018 update for Windows 10 (version 1809), writing in a page dedicated to the update that it would 'investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.' Read more

Over the weekend, several users on Reddit reported that Windows 10’s in-built interface for compressed archive won’t actually extract files properly. Instead, it just “fails silently”, which is not something you want when it comes to data.

Here’s a concise explanation of the bug from user “Wazhai” on Reddit:

The issue is that in 1809, overwriting files by extracting from an archive using File Explorer doesn’t result in an overwrite prompt dialogue and also doesn’t replace any files at all; it just fails silently. There are also some reports that it did overwrite items, but did so silently without asking.

Yikes.

The good news is, if you use a third-party app for archives, such as WinZip, WinRAR or 7-Zip, you won’t encounter the bug.

Still, for the time being, you might want to double-check your file operations until Microsoft releases a fix.

[Reddit, via gHacks]