After several days of issues and little feedback from Microsoft, the company has finally responded to the growing clamour around user’s personal files being deleted during the upgrade to the Windows 10 October 2018 update.

In the Known Issues section of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update History page they write:

We have paused the rollout of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) for all users as we investigate isolated reports of users missing some files after updating.

If users have run into issues Microsoft is offering some help, saying:

If you have checked for updates and believe you have an issue, please contact us directly at +1-800-MICROSOFT or find a local number in your area https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4051701/global-customer-service-phone-numbers. If you have access to a different PC, please contact us at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus/ (link will vary according to country of origin).

Microsoft is also not suggesting users install the current build manually, saying:

If you have manually downloaded the Windows 10 October 2018 Update installation media, please don’t install it and wait until new media is available.

Neowin notes that this build skipped the Release Preview step, which was designed to catch such issues, but as we reported earlier there are indications a small percentage of Insiders were experiencing the file deleting issue for some months now, with the OS update going unfixed, suggesting something more fundamental is amiss with the testing system.

The new guidance can be seen here.