It appears there’s some more bad news for the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, with some apparent further issues in terms of files potentially going missing (following the major file deletion gremlin which caused the update to be paused for the time being by Microsoft).
There are multiple reports from those who have installed the October 2018 Update indicating that ZIP operations are not working as they should, with the operating system failing to ask whether files should be overwritten.
In other words, when you unzip files to a folder, if other copies of those files already exist in that folder, Windows 10 normally produces a prompt to ask whether those current files should be overwritten. Apparently this doesn’t happen now, and the OS just goes ahead and overwrites those files automatically (without informing the user).
Obviously that could be very bad news in terms of accidentally overwriting something newer with an older version of a file.
Apparently this errant behavior is only present when it comes to Windows 10’s built-in ZIP feature (so third-party compression applications aren’t affected, just the operating system’s native capability).
File failures
Another potential issue, albeit less widely reported, is that when unzipping files, not only is there no dialog box asking whether or not to overwrite, but when the operation goes ahead, the files aren’t replaced at all.
In other words, nothing happens and the existing files remain unchanged, which could be equally bad news, because the user has no idea the unzipping process failed.
Complaints of these issues have appeared in several Reddit threads (with plenty of further confirmations), and on Ask Woody, as highlighted by Ghacks.
If this is indeed a widespread problem, as some commenters indicate, let’s hope Microsoft is already addressing this ZIP flaw in the current paused version of the October 2018 Update, alongside the already widely written about file deletion bug.
Obviously, files going missing is a very serious matter, so hopefully any and all underlying issues along these lines with the October 2018 Update will be fully cured when the rollout of the big update recommences.
Meantime, if you have installed the big update and are experiencing any kind of trouble, it’s always worth checking out our full guide on how to fix Windows 10 October 2018 Update problems.
Update: Windows Latest reports that Microsoft has already sussed out a fix for this problem, and it has been applied to the Windows 10 (19H1) preview build (the next update for Windows 10 due in the first half of 2019). So fingers crossed that means the fix for the October 2018 Update is imminent.
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