I've finally went from 23H2 to 26H2... I want to clear up a thing or 2. (rant (kinda))

Hey all.

A few weeks ago, I started this thread: In-place upgrade or fresh install?

In the end, I decided to only keep User Files but made several backups before going forward. AND THANK GOD I DID.

In the thread above, I asked in post 8 of the thread:

Also, now that I think about it, if I only keep the user files, does it keep the Local, LocalLow, Roaming folders in AppData? What about ProgramData at root of C:\? Or are they considered system data and are wiped? Because if they're not, that alone would save me A LOT of time while still performing a relatively clean install.

Click to expand...

and this is what I was told, in the next post:

Yes.

Click to expand...

If I'm saying this, it doesn't take a genius to guess that the reality is...

NO, WINDOWS DOES NOT KEEP APPDATA AND PROGRAMDATA FOLDER INTACT. THEY ARE WIPED CLEAN. (Although I never expected the latter to be left as-is) But everything else in the user's folder is left intact.

How did I figure it out? Well. I installed Waterfox after installing drivers, reconnecting my NAS as network drives... and once it launched it was the basic OOBE of the browser. No open tabs, no bookmarks, no cutomization. GONE.

Because I was so paranoid, I did make a .mrimg of my whole nvme SSD with Macrium before doing the in-place upgrade AND copy the entire content of AppData to an external hard drive. So, dumping a copy of the content of the profile folder back into place was the only thing needed to restore everything.

Then, a minor issue with the current tutorial is that it misses a step before Step 17 in Option 2 where there's a Windows OOBE screen where it asks privacy stuff.

Unrelated to all of this, this month's update gave the error at 4% when trying to download:

We didn't find any updates that are published for your edition at this time. We'll try again when the next scheduled update is published.

Click to expand...

Just Paused updates for the next 90 days a s aresult after finding out that Known Issue could affect me (I'm using USB headphones).

Note that I'm not putting blame on anyone here.

Cheers.

P.S My optical drive issues weren't fixed and I doubt it will until a clean install is done *or* there's a driver or something interfering.
P.P.S Also encountered a bug where my Start Menu pins had also just vanished into thin air after a reboot.

Lebon14 said:

Hey all.

A few weeks ago, I started this thread: In-place upgrade or fresh install?

In the end, I decided to only keep User Files but made several backups before going forward. AND THANK GOD I DID.

In the thread above, I asked in post 8 of the thread:


and this is what I was told, in the next post:


If I'm saying this, it doesn't take a genius to guess that the reality is...

NO, WINDOWS DOES NOT KEEP APPDATA AND PROGRAMDATA FOLDER INTACT. THEY ARE WIPED CLEAN. (Although I never expected the latter to be left as-is) But everything else in the user's folder is left intact.

How did I figure it out? Well. I installed Waterfox after installing drivers, reconnecting my NAS as network drives... and once it launched it was the basic OOBE of the browser. No open tabs, no bookmarks, no cutomization. GONE.

Because I was so paranoid, I did make a .mrimg of my whole nvme SSD with Macrium before doing the in-place upgrade AND copy the entire content of AppData to an external hard drive. So, dumping a copy of the content of the profile folder back into place was the only thing needed to restore everything.

Then, a minor issue with the current tutorial is that it misses a step before Step 17 in Option 2 where there's a Windows OOBE screen where it asks privacy stuff.

Unrelated to all of this, this month's update gave the error at 4% when trying to download:


Just Paused updates for the next 90 days a s aresult after finding out that Known Issue could affect me (I'm using USB headphones).

Note that I'm not putting blame on anyone here.

Cheers.

P.S My optical drive issues weren't fixed and I doubt it will until a clean install is done *or* there's a driver or something interfering.
P.P.S Also encountered a bug where my Start Menu pins had also just vanished into thin air after a reboot.

Click to expand...

The person you cited was a bit confused over what you were doing and gave you the information for an in-place upgrade which keeps everything intact.