Windows Update Deleted my files?

Hello,

I've been struggling with this one since 6:00am CST I left my computer last evening at 3:00am CST with only 1 program open: VMWare.

Windows Update downloaded a new update, installed it, and rebooted the computer around 4:00am CST. When I got to the computer at 6:00am, the VMWare image was 'suspended'. This is pretty normal.

However - the image won't run anymore. Reason: about 50+ files are removed from that directory completely! This was a pretty important VMWare image and I am hoping there is a way to recover what the MS Update did.

I have tried undelete programs to no avail. Is there someplace MS moves files to during an update? Why would this have happened and what can I do about it?

The only restore points (right-click folder, 'restore previous versions') are from 4:00 AM and then later on in the day. When I open the restore point for 4am, the 50+ files are not there either.

Any ideas guys? I'm fresh out of ideas and about to go insane.

The files may be in that 4AM restore point after all. Previous version is not very reliable. Run Shadow Explorer and have a closer look. If you found them, right click on them and "Export" back into your system.

richc46 said:

Welcome

I am sorry that you are having problems. I will start off by telling you that I am not familiar with VmWare, so I cannot give your specifics about that progam, I can however give you general answers, which should work. I think that a system restore would return everything the way it was prior to the update. The upadate will also be removed. You can replace that if important.

Explain 'System Restore'?

I did load ShadowExplorer and the files are not in the fileset for the 4:00am restore point. Is this 'system restore' something different I should try?

That means they were AWOL already before.