Microsoft is re-releasing its Windows 10 October 2018 Update today, following the company pulling it offline due to data deletion issues over the weekend. The software giant says there were only a few reports of data loss, at a rate of one one-hundredth of one percent. “We have fully investigated all reports of data loss, identified and fixed all known issues in the update, and conducted internal validation,” says Microsoft’s John Cable, director of program management for Windows Servicing and Delivery.

Microsoft is now re-releasing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update to Windows Insiders, before rolling it out more broadly to consumers. “We will carefully study the results, feedback, and diagnostic data from our Insiders before taking additional steps towards re-releasing more broadly,” explains Cable.

Bug was related to known folder redirection

It appears the bug that caused file deletion was related to Windows 10 users who had enabled Known Folder Redirection to redirect folders like desktop, documents, pictures, and screenshots from the default location. Microsoft introduced code in its latest update to delete the empty and duplicate known folders, but it appears they weren’t always empty. Microsoft has developed fixes to address a variety of problems related to these folder moves, and these fixes are now being tested with Windows Insiders.

Speaking of Windows Insiders, Microsoft’s testing community did flag some of these issues ahead of the release. Microsoft appears to acknowledge this as the company is making some changes to the feedback tool for Windows 10 to ensure testers can flag the severity of bug reports. “We have added an ability for users to also provide an indication of impact and severity when filing User Initiated Feedback,” explains Cable. “We expect this will allow us to better monitor the most impactful issues even when feedback volume is low.”

Microsoft will now monitor feedback related to this re-released build of Windows 10 October 2018 Update and will officially launch it to consumers once the company is confident “that there is no further impact” to Windows 10 users. “We are committed to learning from this experience and improving our processes and notification systems to help ensure our customers have a positive experience with our update process,” says Cable.