After a Windows 11/10 update, users may panic if their Music, Photos, and Documents go missing. However, a few recovery tools didn’t work for these users which exacerbated their situation. But in this post, we will see how to recover deleted User data folders after Feature Update.
Recover missing files after Windows Feature Update
Windows Update system always creates a backup of all your files in the C drive (the default place where Windows is installed). These files are a copy of C drive including Users folders which include AppData, Desktop, Documents, Favourites, Links, etc. The backup is intentional. In case of any problem during the update, Windows rolls back to the previous version and uses these files.
The files backed up in the Windows Update are kept in Windows.old folder in the C drive. These files are available for the next ten days in case users want to roll back. Also, these files can be deleted by the user to free up space after a Windows 11/10 Feature Update. So if you did not rush through deleting those files, all your files are available in that folder.
Go to the following location, where XYZ is the username:
C:\Windows.old\Users\XYZ
This should have all the User folders in place for that user.
Copy the files that you need to your preferred location.
That’s it.
If you are not carrying out any clean installation, and have chosen to keep the files during any Windows 11/10 Update, this folder will be available and comes in handy to recover files.
You can also use Recover Personal Files Tool from Microsoft that lets you retrieve files from Windows.old folder in Windows 11/10.
This particular troubleshooter attempts to recover data that is ‘lost’ during an upgrade or custom install. It will then provide you with steps to migrate this data. If the troubleshooter cannot locate the data it will not be able to recover it
One last thing I would strongly suggest always – Move your User folder location to another partition.
How was your experience with the latest Windows 11/10 Feature Update? Did you lose files because of it?
See this post if Files are missing after the Windows Upgrade.
How to recover deleted user files in Windows 11?
Whenever a user file is deleted, it is relocated to the Recycle Bin. To restore the deleted file to its original position, one can open the recycle bin, right-click on the file, and click on Restore.
Also Read: Schedule System Restore Points in Windows .
