Another System Restore AppxStaging Error... (spoiler: nothing worked)

So as per the title, I have recently discovered for myself, the AppxStaging error when trying to run System Restore.

Due to Microsoft's incompetence, I lost a lot of import files and I need to try and get them back. I've already tried 6 different file recovery programs, and they ALL failed spectacularly to find anything, despite the fact the files were deleted less then 20 minutes prior.

A lot of people (read: 100% of people) have had luck with renaming the WindowsApps folder. I did, and it did nothing whatsoever. I have thus far tried:

- Renaming the WindowsApps folder... failed
- Running System Restore in Safe Mode... failed
- Running System Restore from the Recovery Environment... failed
- Running Offline System Restore from a Command Prompt... failed
- Running SFC/DISM checks... failed
- Disabling/removing my Antivirus, just in case... failed

And a few more failed attempts that I can't remember. But yeah, literally every "fix" that I've read about has had a 100% failure rate. I also get different error codes:

- 0x8007045b
- 0x80070026

And another one that I've also forgotten. Even freshly created Restore Points do not work. I am literally at the end of my tether right now. I'm so angry and frustrated right now, I've punched my monitor so many times I don't know if it can take another hit. I'm grinding my teeth so hard they're starting to ache. I'm so pissed with Microsoft.

In my years of using Windows, I've attempted to System Restore since the days of Windows XP. NEVER got it working on Windows XP. Worked once on Windows 7 and once on Windows 10... and never worked for me again.

Does anyone out there have a fix that DOES work properly? Because all these people saying the "rename WindowsApp" is the fix cannot be telling the full truth, otherwise it would have worked for me, just like everyone else.

Any help would be appreciated though... like, anything at all!

- - - Updated - - -

Quick addition: After further trying to get System Restore to work, and also completely deleting the WindowsApps folder, as I was getting desperate, something has, for absolutely no reason, deleted ALL of my Restore points, ultimately making this post useless.

Sorry to have wasted your time... you may go about your business!

Were you hoping to recover 'personal' files/documents via SR? If so, what made you think that would work?

mngerhold : The answer to that is yes, was hoping to try and recover some personal files, including photos and documents. And what made me think it would work is that on the two rare occasions that System Restore worked perfectly for me, it had successfully recovered the files (photos and documents) I was hoping to get back. So I was hoping for a third successful restore, but no such luck.

Agodalchina : I deleted a bunch of duplicate files, and had already emptied the recycle bin before I realised. The duplicates were in the OneDrive folder... Pictures, Documents and Desktop. And they were also in their normal location of the Users folder. I had no idea that deleting the files in the OneDrive folder would delete BOTH the originals and the duplicates.

Given I always disable and uninstall OneDrive almost immediately after every Windows reinstall, and up to this point, this has NEVER happened. Files were never synced into the OneDrive folder like they were this time. I simply thought I was deleting a bunch of duplicate files that OneDrive had created, ready to sync, before I disabled it.

Add to that, the files in question were NOT on my OneDrive. They weren't synced. They were just copies... or so I thought. I therefore lost a load of photos I've had for the past decade, as well as (almost) all my documents.

I've since taken to using Acronis (for now) to make regular backups of my Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures and Video folders and save them to my other internal HDD.