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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 3:53 pm 
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Booted up my and GG's pcs earlier. Mine booted up just fine. GGs was strange. Different desktop, all blue with white wavy lines, pleasant enough, but her desktop photo of a bird was gone. Icons were different, and some icons also missing from the system tray. I did Microsoft Windows updates a couple of days ago on both of our systems. My first reaction was, "Oh, no, ms somehow slipped Windows 10 onto her system, I thought they had stopped doing that!" Upon playing around I discovered that it was still Window 7! But her gazillion photos from My Pictures were gone as well as her other documents. Then a popup appeared suggesting that we download the latest Windows Office, whatever version that is, 360 or something like that. Had Windows 7 been reinstalled from scratch, I don't think so because at least some programs were still there.

HELLO, you all know me, Mr. Backup (although Peter is the true Mr. Backup). Fortunately Macrium was still on her system although I probably would have been able to restore anyway with the Macrium recovery CD. Restored her pc to an earlier date in January. She had lost all of her photos and photo editing work since that date but I also backup her photos separately and was able to restore all her work.

Question: any ideas on WHAT HAPPENED? I am going to stop doing all ms updates for now since both GG and I will be getting new pcs later this year, with Win10, then I will again start doing updates again. As you know I have tons of security software to protect us until we jump to Win10. If you all feel that this was not Microsoft's fault then I will continue updating but not until this simple mind understands what happened.

Thanks all, Acadia

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 6:04 pm 
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Sounds like a corrupted user profile, so it booted into a default profile.

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:03 pm 
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MacDuffie wrote:
Sounds like a corrupted user profile, so it booted into a default profile.

Ok, that is a simple explanation and hopefully correct. But how in tarnation did a corrupted user profile happen? Thru windows updates? Other than that, what could have caused it? I am the only one who updates or changes anything on her system.

Thanks once again,
Acadia

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 7:32 pm 
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Many things can cause a corrupted user profile... improper shutdown to just a glitch of a file being written. If you had not already done the image restore I'd be interested in knowing if all her photos still showed as intact if you went to C:\Users\GG.

As I'm sure that Patty will agree a corrupted profile is not all that uncommon. I'm not saying it happens all the time but more often than one would think. This is one of the reasons that I put all my data on a separate drive.

A common way to fix this if the system fully boots is to create another user profile, copy over all data, delete the old profile and rename the new profile to what the old was. In such a case you would not just copy Documents, Pictures, etc. but also such things as Favorites and the 'Desktop' folder.

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:16 pm 
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Just curious -- did you reboot the machine again after the strange boot experience and login to the default profile before restoring the backup?
-steve

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:32 pm 
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Jay: sorry, but I did the restore immediately after realizing that I was still in Win7 and the restore worked perfectly, I used Macrium after all. C:\Users\"GG" did not even exist anymore, but of course they all came back after the restore, I just had to restore the newer photos from her photo backups.

Steve, thanks: I did NOT reboot the machine after the mess up but went straight into the recovery since Macrium was still on her machine and I was able to use it. The only reboot came AFTER the recovery.

Acadia

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:33 pm 
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sboots wrote:
Just curious -- did you reboot the machine again after the strange boot experience and login to the default profile before restoring the backup?
-steve

LOL! Why do you always ask better questions than myself? :mrgreen:

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 12:01 am 
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A common cause of profile corruption is registry corruption due to bad memory or a bad hard disk sector. No different, really, from any file corruption. Electrical issues also. Even infections. Bad shutdown, as Jay said, is a common one. I don't really see Windows (or other) updates causing this.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:59 am 
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Acadia wrote:
Steve, thanks: I did NOT reboot the machine after the mess up but went straight into the recovery since Macrium was still on her machine and I was able to use it. The only reboot came AFTER the recovery.

Acadia


If you ever experience the problem again, do that first. Sometimes a process has locked the default profile and a reboot will get you back in. It is pretty rare, but I've seen it happen a few times, so it's worth trying.

-steve

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:01 am 
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jaylach wrote:
LOL! Why do you always ask better questions than myself? :mrgreen:


:-) You ask good questions, (and provide good answers) too!

-steve

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:47 am 
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sboots wrote:
If you ever experience the problem again, do that first. Sometimes a process has locked the default profile and a reboot will get you back in. It is pretty rare, but I've seen it happen a few times, so it's worth trying.
-steve


I've seen it also, so yes, always do a reboot when things seem strange.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:58 am 
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Thanks everyone, everything back to normal. Yeah, I will probably redo the ms updates that were lost from going "back-in-time". GG lost none of her photo work because of my other backups. Naturally, her av and Malwarebytes updated their signatures automatically.

Actually one positive thing came from sending her system back to January 21: that nagging Malwarebytes popup to update the software has disappeared and she still has the healthy version 2. I was able to go into the Malwarebytes settings and kill the software updating before this all started happening again.

Speaking of GGs photos. She was contacted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology a few months back. They are publishing a new book on bird identification later this spring. They asked for her permission to use one of her photos, of a Green Heron, in their book. She will, of course, receive full credit for the photo and a free copy of the book. So proud I can't hide my pride. :dance3:

Thanks again, Acadia

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:14 pm 
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Well done GG for getting one of your photos included in the book, I'm not surprised though knowing the quality of your photos. :-)

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 2:04 pm 
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Awesome for GG, Acadia. Her photos are amazing. :)

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:08 pm 
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I would stop using Malwarebytes!!!


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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:18 pm 
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A very inflammatory statement with no information. Why the caps? Please explain.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:58 pm 
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Patty beat me to it but I came back to ask basically the same question. Do you have reasonable cause to suspect that MBAM caused Acadia's issue? If not I don't understand the post.

For myself I have had no issue with MBAM even considering version 3. In fact I tried an experiment and made an external image with Acronis with MBAM turned off just to be safe. I then tried restoring an image that was made internally with MBAM 3 totally enabled. The image restore went fine.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 12:51 am 
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Caps was to get peoples attention. Yes I do have a reason. With 3.ox there have people who have had their profiles corrupted. Very unstable. Patty you are using 3.0 and the tray icon might show good, but have you checked to see if the protections are really on. They might not be.

I extended my comments back to v2 because for the changes in behavior I noted in v2, I suspect some changes might have been ported it back. No proof on that. Currrently I have taken all MBAM of my systems. I am still working with one of the tech product managers, but I can't really report on that. Of most concern is there is a story line in the forums that seems to lack a little in candor. They never should have released 3.0

Consider I reported the VSS bug back in November, and the fix still hasn't been released. That's a disgrace.


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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 1:47 am 
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I still don't understand your stance...

1) You have stated that with MBAM 3.x fully enabled an image restore will fail yet I have had full success restoring an image made with Acronis 2017 when the image was created when MBAM Pro 3.x was fully enabled. Yes, you DID report the VSS bug way back when... I don't see it. As to our imaging I use Acronis and you use Macrium. You have issues and I don't. Possibly you may want to take another look at your image backup strategy.

2) The only 'bug' that I've seen with MBAM 3.x is the fact that on a reboot it will sometimes not automatically enable full protection. Even in this case the notification area icon let's you know there is an issue an allows the situation to be corrected. I have seen zero reason that MBAM 3.x should not have been released.

3) You keep saying that MBAM is a problem but you don't give any specifics that I can duplicate on my system. Please outline a scenario with specifics where an image backup will fail if MBAM is fully enabled and I will test on my system. I DO insist that this test situation be involved with Acronis or Windows image backup as I will NEVER put Macrium back on my system as it has proven to be a total PITA! Actually Macrium is the ONLY image software that I have ever used that failed. Personally I see Macrium as the Norton of imaging...

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 8:15 am 
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Two quick things. First, GG never had Malwarebytes version 3 on her system BUT it kept trying to install. We, both her and I, kept not allowing it. I never had that issue, at least not yet.

Second, wow, Jay, you are the first person that I have ever heard say that Macrium let them down. How long ago was this?
Thanks, Acadia

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 9:44 am 
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jaylach wrote:
I still don't understand your stance...

1) You have stated that with MBAM 3.x fully enabled an image restore will fail yet I have had full success restoring an image made with Acronis 2017 when the image was created when MBAM Pro 3.x was fully enabled. Yes, you DID report the VSS bug way back when... I don't see it. As to our imaging I use Acronis and you use Macrium. You have issues and I don't. Possibly you may want to take another look at your image backup strategy.

2) The only 'bug' that I've seen with MBAM 3.x is the fact that on a reboot it will sometimes not automatically enable full protection. Even in this case the notification area icon let's you know there is an issue an allows the situation to be corrected. I have seen zero reason that MBAM 3.x should not have been released.

3) You keep saying that MBAM is a problem but you don't give any specifics that I can duplicate on my system. Please outline a scenario with specifics where an image backup will fail if MBAM is fully enabled and I will test on my system. I DO insist that this test situation be involved with Acronis or Windows image backup as I will NEVER put Macrium back on my system as it has proven to be a total PITA! Actually Macrium is the ONLY image software that I have ever used that failed. Personally I see Macrium as the Norton of imaging...


First I am with Acadia, what version of Macrium failed and how did it fail.

Another question. Did you actually read what I've posted. Macrium never failed it will image your system and restore it just fine. BUT what happens is when any imaging program runs in windows, VSS creates the snapshot files in the folder c:system volume information. They can be big. When the imaging program exits VSS deletes those files. MBAM 3's Ransomware module has been blocking those deletes, and those files just collect taking up space. You ought to look and see what is in there.

As to MB 3 working have been checking. The tray icon might show everything on, but do you open the program and check. You might discover a surprise that can change from day to day.

As for Acronis. I have one licenses for 2017, that I use no more. Here are two simple tests for both Acronis and windows imaging.

1. Take a differential every day.
2. At the end of the week delete differentials 2, and 3. That shouldn't matter with Differentials.
3 Then take another differential followed by a restore. Let me know how it goes.

4. Final test. Start a restore of any kind. Once it starts wait about 3 minutes, and do a hardware re set. Should trash your disk. Then do another restore. Let me know how that goes with both programs.


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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 11:14 am 
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No issues with Malwarebytes 3 here at all.

I've removed the caps in your post, Peter, as they were not warranted.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 11:54 am 
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Hey Patty I agree.


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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:40 pm 
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I don't remember the version of Malcrium but it was from when it was first mentioned here... I suppose a couple of years ago? Possibly the thing was not supposed to do a restore as it was a trial copy but was within the trial period. It would make an image ant then, when a restore was attempted, it would never find an image.

I'll look at your test Pete but, to be honest, I don't tend to do differential images. All my images with Acronis and Windows are single shot images deleting the previous when the new is finished.

I do open MBAM 3 now and then to be sure but have never (yet) seen it open differently than what the tray icon shows. Of course I could have missed instances but when part of the protection has failed to start the icon has reflected that fact.

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 Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:08 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
... I suppose a couple of years ago? Possibly the thing was not supposed to do a restore as it was a trial copy but was within the trial period. It would make an image ant then, when a restore was attempted, it would never find an image.


Jay, if the only thing you have to condemn Macrium about is this: not finding an image in the TRIAL version, and then go on to COMPARE THIS INCREDIBLE PROGRAM TO NORTON :evil3: ... I don't think that there is anything else that I can say to you, proceed as you will.

Acadia

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