14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently acknowledged a bug in Windows 10 version 1809 (October 2018 Update) that removes the file overwrite warning when extracting files from a ZIP archive to a location where data with the same name already exists.
However, the software giant says, even if it looks like files are being overwritten, this does not happen, and no data should be lost.
“With the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, if you copy or move files from a .ZIP file (without first “extracting” the contents) in to a new destination folder that contains duplicate filenames or is write-protected, you don’t get a “Do you want to replace these files” prompt,” the company says.
“It will appear that the files were overwritten, when in fact the copy action for those files is not executed and files have not been overwritten.”
Patch coming next month
There are three different scenarios when the process could fail, and at least one of them could cause data to be overwritten, the company explains. The bug can occur when copying files from a ZIP file to a regular folder, moving items from a ZIP to a regular folder, or copying files from a ZIP to a protected folder.
“While the copy action for the duplication file names does not complete and no files are overwritten, the “move” command will also silently fail and might remove/delete the moved file,” the software giant notes.
Microsoft goes on to recommend users to extract files from ZIP archives to new locations to avoid the bug, and says that a fix is already on the way and it should be released in a future update. The patch will be released in early November, it says, so Microsoft may be waiting for next month’s Patch Tuesday to ship a fix. The November 2018 Patch Tuesday rollout is projected to kick off on the 13th.