Hi all, so TLDR: Files randomly deleted (maybe somehow hidden?) at around 16:39 today. Here's some of the info:

Windows version: 10.0.18363 Build 18363

Microsoft Visual Studio 2019, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, Android Emulator were all running when this happened.

I added a new certificate earlier in the day (dotnet dev-certs https --trust) for .NET core web service development certificate (more info here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/xam...l-web-services).

I also added a NuGet package for checking my web service routes: routedebugger by Phil Haack (sounds dodgy but a couple of million people use it, so...)

IIS Server Manager could also be a culprit, as it essentially creates new users for each site/service/whatever you want to host.

At approximately 16:39, I couldn't access my web service that I hosted on IIS (locally). It just said the entire folder has gone.

I checked my D drive, and it's only some files on my D drives, and they've gone missing. The key files are:

ssms.exe which is the executable file for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (that was running before the files were deleted/hidden/whatever has happened to them). However, the rest of the SSMS folder is still there (from what I can tell), it's only the exe that has vanished...

Photoshop.exe (same with above, the folder and all the relevant files are still there apart from Photoshop exe.)

OBS.exe which is a video recording/streaming software. Weirdly, the entire folder has vanished...

Visual Studio is still there, however a bunch of my .cs files from a few of my projects have all vanished, and I'm an idiot for not backing them up more regularly.. I just didn't think this would happen.

Now I'm looking at this encryption key certificate that was created pretty much EXACTLY the time the files went missing, and I also got an alert about me backing up the encryption key. I didn't back it up but I'm guessing it was talking about this new key it had just created anyway, which I have here in the Encryption File System program.

The thing is though when you or I encrpyt a file, it doesn't get removed or hidden, it just has a lock on it... so where the hell have these files gone and why have they been potentially deleted in the first place?

I understand it's an extremely odd set of events, but would any of you intelligent people have any idea of what is happening here? Feeling very depressed that I've lost my work. The apps aren't a huge problem, just that I've lost a lot of work that I've been working on over the past few weeks and I was an idiot for not backing it up...

Thanks for reading and please let me know if you need more info.