User modifications disappeared with latest update

After laboriously learning to set up LibreOffice user interface modifications (too many to remember) I find them all gone with the latest “update” which changed the appearance so starkly we must relearn how to navigate the interface.
Can someone please tell us where the user interface modifications we created are stored and how to restore them, once an “update” has automatically wiped them clean?

Just two brief examples:
The toolbars have all changed appearance; I don’t remember which toolbars were in use, but I knew from experience where to find frequently used editing tools. For example, I no longer know where to find “find and replace”; the icon is no longer in its position. All icons have changed appearance so that they are now difficult to recognize.
Other sorts of modifications: my auto text shortcuts… and again, I don’t recall from memory how those were set up and had to learn how to create them one at a time… but now they are all gone. Surely we are not expected to go back and spend hours and days working on relearning and reapplying all of our user mods and shortcuts? (in classic Microsoft fashion which we have struggled mightily to escape by using LibreOffice instead).
Again, please (!) How do we restore the set ups which “updates” have just destroyed. Yesterday, all was well with LO writer. Today, it is a nightmare and loss of several years of work. Please assist if there is a reasonable solution, other than rereading the bloody manual.
Thank you, if you can HELP.

User interface in Writer


UI changes created by the user are located in the user profile. In case of changes it is recommended to save the user profile regularly.

LibreOffice user profile


Can that help?

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How do we restore the user profile?
And is there a means to protect the user profile/ settings from being altered by one of LibreOffice’s “updates”?

The infaormation is in the link already given:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile

As you didn’t disclose any info on your OS and the update you did/endured, there is not much more to say - except the usual: “I hope you have backups” If you don’t have backups: Start doing them before further tinkering around.

Actually the user profile is usually not changed. On the contrary, often people struggle with problems in the profile, wich are not solved by re-installing the program, as it keeps the old profile.

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An update or new installation of LibreOffice should leave the user profile alone. If it got deleted, you should have got an introductory window and daily hints. If you don’t get those, the profile should be fine, but maybe a new interface type was set as default.

Thanks for the replies.
However if anyone knows how to obtain my user profile and reinstate it as it was a day ago before LibreOffice interfered with and destroyed it, can you please offer a simple answer to that question, without lessons on how to live, etc?

Two maybe three hours of struggling as usual with software that does what it wants, and not what an ordinary user wants.

I find that it is now impossible to insert a date by the previous method.
**How to insert a date into a document as text, so that it is NOT contained in a gray box, without inserting a “field” that if you select it, forces open a “field” editor? **
Insert date, only date. Simple date in the format I chose in the field editor and leave it at that?

The forced use of such devices which we cannot circumvent is the most frustrating and aggravating element of computer software for working people who need to USE, not design and unravel, the software.

The most basic mods are broken.
The toolbars I painstakingly assembled are now a frigging mess.

I fail to see why something that works and whose use has been learned must be destroyed. Software is supposed to be a tool; not an obsession. We need a hammer, not a complex lesson in the inorganic chemical makeup of artificial hand-held tool grips, the process by which hammers are forged and assembled, and a sneer at those of us who work in OTHER fields than software development. 30 years of being forced to use badly counter-intuitive computer software has prevented several generations now from having time to read or get an education, or even to enjoy life without suffering another tech support debacle and stolen time spent reading convoluted instruction manuals that would bore the brain out of any sensate creature.

Windows 10; LibreOffice Version: 7.2.5.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 499f9727c189e6ef3471021d6132d4c694f357e5
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19043; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL
There. Does that help?

If YOU don’t have a backup, this is not possible.

It says only you need the part with %APPDATA% in the already given links.

I’ve not read any frequent/seldom complaints of LO to destroy 7.2 profiles on Win10. So nothing to point you to.

Use your backup-system. One hint for restoring the profile also an older copy will have your configuration. And also a similiar config on another computer will work…

PS: I assume your update was from a recent version, nether LO 3.x nor OpenOffice…

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