www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-is-now-automatically-enabling-onedrive-folder-backup-without-asking-permission/
Windows 11 is now automatically enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission
SoftwareYes this popped up for some of our users. It moved the documents to one drive and then made shortcuts to them so when you turn off the one drive backup you no longer have the files in the original location and have to download them again. Super hostile.
You can go into the folder options and move the default locations for the desktop and documents folders back to their original locations.
That will move the files back too, its the same process as when onedrive moved them in the first place.
But 99% of people aren't going to know how to do that or even that you can.
Do you have a more detailed way to do this?
Go to your OneDrive in windows explorer so you can see the affected folders like documents, pictures and so on. Right click on the folder you want to move and select properties. You will see a tab that says 'location'. Click it and you will see the current location. You can click the 'move' button and navigate to the new location or you can simply remove 'OneDrive' from the file path and apply the change. A dialogue will come up asking if you would like to move all your files to which you will respond yes. Do this to the folders you want to move out of OneDrive to their original locations.
Edit: From memory so don't go off on me if every single step isn't perfect =D
Thank you, my husband just got a Windows 11 PC and I'm about to get a Windows 11 laptop and this is absolutely what we needed to know.
I just made the transition to win11 myself and what convinced me to move was finding this guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQZ5oQg8XA&t=532s
It's a few easy steps you do follow before and during installation of windows and it improves the quality of life with win11 significantly.
It basically tells you how to install a mostly clean version of Win11 without having to give it a Microsoft account (so just with username and a password as it used to be), or a large portion of the telemetry that comes with win11 as a default.
Then, he's also got a tool that can help you tweak the system further, removing a large amount of unnecessary/bad services and other useful tweaks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_AaHXrelTE&t=566s
I myself followed the Tweaks, Config and Updates Tab chapters. Again, everything is explained in easy steps, accessible and fast to get through.
My windows 11 now runs lightning fast, there isn't any annoying widgets/ads in system, no OneDrive (so no issues as what this thread talks about).. it's basically how my system used to be, just with windows11 skin on top.
Highly recommend these for anyone with no windows-tweaking experience who would all the same love to move to a clean windows 11!
I'm confused why you linked to two youtube videos instead of simply linking to the tool itself.
https://github.com/christitustech/winutil
Either way, thanks for the tip!
First thing I do when I get a new PC or start using one. Uninstall as much MS software as possible. It's not good.
Microsoft are not good at developing software for Windows.
A fact so bizarre that a lot of people can't believe it.
I haven't tried it in win11 yet, but in win10, right click on the documents folder, select properties, and then go to the location tab.
There's a button to restore it back to it's original location if it's not already there and an option to move it somewhere else if you wanted to do that instead.
It's far easier to just uninstall OneDrive. As part of the uninstall it moves all the files to original locations.
Didn't do that for me and one of our other test PCs, broke the File Explorer directory listing so trying to access Documents would crash FE, had to go through C Drive, attempting to remove or relocate the Documents shortcut would result in a permissions error
Caused me and a client a major headache a few months back
Didn't do that for me either at uninstall. And I'm pretty sure I never asked for onedrive to be enabled, just one day found all my files moved to a different directory. Which broke a number of build scrips that had locations set inside them.
What a pain in the ass.
Man I don't know if you're trolling or not but nobody should trust this. Make sure the shit you need is on your own computer before you disable OneDrive.
Even though my OneDrive is marked to "keep files on original device" as well as the backup, I recently found out it's a fucking lie. I went to reinstall GPU drivers and when I booted into safemode none of the files would work that were on my desktop because they were on fucking OneDrive. I had to reboot back into normal mode, move the files to a folder that isn't backed up, reboot back into safe mode, and would you fucking believe it? It worked.
I experienced this the other day, noticed the one drive symbol was active when it shouldn't be, disabled backup immediately, POOF, all the document files I had locally gone. I'm still pissed. It did this with my desktop icons, too.
yeah one drive is an absolute scandal. whenever I give a speech about it, consumers are amazed. they only get away with it because nobody has any clue it's happening.
if all of us in this thread got together and helped people remove it, it wouldn't stand a chance. I'm actually assembling a group of people to raise awareness and liberate people from big tech:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ComputerExorcists/comments/vmymx5/cloudsucking_scandals/
Exactly this I lost a ton of files that way.. Google did the same thing with me and their shared folder.. if you delete it from their folder it deletes from your folder on your drive. What the fuck hostel is right
Isn't this the point of online sync? Otherwise your online version will be cluttered full of files that you thought you deleted? I also seem to recall annoying notifications from google drive every time I wanted to delete reminding me that a local deletion would be mirrored online also.
Apple did the same thing with iCloud Drive, and when you turned it off after it failed to sync, it would just delete everything. The number of people who lost all of their documents must have been staggering.
Criminal charges now.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access,
This is theft. Plain and simple.
Before people claim I'm being hyperbolic. How would you feel if this happened to your doctor with your HIPAA covered medical information?
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's not that simple.
Yeah. There are always exceptions in every kernel of law. Almost never in our favor
My doctor has forms saying their data is not secure, and you will be delivered information in insecure ways, and there is not an alternative. Awesome time to be alive
What annoys me is that it isn’t clear what folder you’re looking at because the OneDrive folder and local user folder are both just called “Documents.” At least change the fucking icon.
Yes! I can’t find anything anymore.
And we wonder why new generations don't know what a folder even is. Note they're being trained at school to keep everything in various cloud drives with no local backups.
It's so annoying that I don't use the Documents folder anymore. I made a C:\Docs and put everything that I would normally save in Documents in there.
I've been doing that before the OneDrive issue even arose because Windows uses the default Documents folder as a dumping ground. "Video game save game files? Put 'em in Documents! Accounting program data files? Put 'em in Documents! User scanned something with their scanner? Create an empty 'Fax' folder with an empty 'Drafts' folder and an empty 'Inbox' folder in Documents!"
So, yeah, ever since Windows 10 (maybe as far back as Windows 7?) my computer has "Documents," which is the junk drawer my apps use, and "D:/Docs," which is where I actually keep my documents, nice and organized.
Video game save game files? Put 'em in Documents!
Absolutely loathe this one. In my documents folder I have no less than 60 game folders, out of a total of 95 folders! We have the semi-standard "My Games" folder, if you absolutely have to dump your crap in documents, use that at least! Over 40 other games managed! sighs
And of the remaining, ~25 are from various programs. Leaving about 10 that's actually mine. Documents folder is sadly a joke.
I cite non-standard save folder location as a negative in steam reviews
I fucking hate this for work. I have to dig through extra layers of clicks when saving anything because it likes defaulting to a shitty folder I don't want to use.
My shit company is now making us use SharePoint for file storage. We have more files than is recommended for that. Its annoying af because before, I just had to drag files from the drive into an email to send or the browser window for one of the sites we use. Now I have to download everything then drag it wherever. I cant just drag from the sharepoint window.Theyve added extra steps just for sending people shit. Its been a lot harder to stay on top of when they decided to complicate something that should be simple. Its also making me crazy because of the amount of electronic clutter I regularly need to clean out or get overwhelmed with. I hate this push for everything to be online.
Oh jesus, sharepoint is so user hostile I don't understand why anyone uses it.
Started a new job that uses SharePoint for EVERYTHING and it is driving me insane lol.
So your hot new tech company can validate their use of Microsoft's Copilot AI search function
To add to this, a windows 11 device that gets set up with an MS account [which it forces so almost all of them except users who go through a roundabout way of avoiding it] not only defaults saving everything to that phantom OneDrive folder but also doesn’t generate a local Desktop folder at all. The absolute malice with the OneDrive integration is insane.
I specifically disabled my Internet so I didn't have to link a Microsoft account. Annoying that if you don't do that upon set up you can't get around it
To install W11 with a local account, upon initial startup when it asks for the language or keyboard layout, do the following:
Use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F10. A Command Prompt window should show up.
Type and enter "oobe\bypassnro".
The computer will restart and the option should be present.
This shit again. They tried this about 5 years ago.
Loads of people in my uni degree lost work because Microsoft forced OneDrive on everyone. If you didn’t have a paid OneDrive account then it would just overwrite your oldest stuff.
Holy hit someone just set Microsoft on fire with a NUKE.
I don't care if this is inflamatory but man am I tired of their bullshit.
OneDrive automatically enables and backs up everything in Documents and Pictures folder. Except my laptop does not need my gaming towers video game saves but does need access to my Word Documents.
It took ages to figure out how to properly disable it and yet every once in a while it reverts to everything and suddenly my laptop "needs to save video game files".
I hate the enshitifcation of the digital age.
Also, the way to ensure only selected folders get backed up is so stupid, I had to write up a summary for them since their current explanation don't match or are super outdated.
It's a gigantic security problem you stupid fucks. Stop trying to make onedrive happen, it's not going to happen. Google drive was invented over a decade ago. No one wants to use your stupid cloud for you to probably use it to train AI.
I hope OneDrive gets the Internet Explorer anti-trust lawsuit treatment. Microsoft is embedding that crap into everything. One misclick when setting up Outlook, and the software bricks itself 3 years later. When the free 5GB gets used up, it stops pulling email by throwing errors about lack of storage space because there's no room to backup the emails.
Windows 10 did this to me as well recently, it was unbelievable. I had onedrive completely removed from my PC, and one day, not even after an update, just out of the blue, I noticed it had reinstalled itself and began backing up everything in my documents/videos/pictures.
I get around 800kbps down and 40kbps up with my internet, and the only reason I noticed it is because my internet was basically nonfunctional, I couldn't get anything to load. After checking the house for stuff that could be updating, certain that it wasn't my computer because I'm very meticulous about what I let use internet on my PC because of this. I was finally at my wits end when I checked task manager on my PC and saw onedrive was open and doing stuff, and sure enough, it was plugging away at uploading my files! Not once did it prompt me to reinstall OR start backing up my files, and I have never once agreed to use the program. I genuinely don't understand how they can get away with stuff like this.
This is why I go in and rename a bunch of windows update files and folders, rename a few empty text files to the original names. Then make them read only and mess up the file permissions some more after.
is this what they call chaotic good?
Id argue most or all large companies are lawful evil, I try and balance the scale a bit. Also note, messing up the files like that breaks the windows store. Good riddance.
Neutral evil at best. They only follow the law when forced. Can't be chaotic, because their bullshit is still done in their own interest.
Save yourself the hassle and run your next install under "world" region.
Don't do this for customer PCs it breaks a bunch of random stuff that you have to correct in user space.
It’s wild to me that you have to outsmart your own computer to maintain your privacy. You own the fucking thing. Shit like this is why I switched to linux
I just force disable onedrive In regedit
I just went and looked and it was installed on my 10 pro machine on 6/21...the fuckers...
22nd for me! Thanks for the heads up.
Same for me, thanks for letting me know
In your network settings you can click "this is a metered connection". Turn that on and Windows won't automatically download anything anymore.
Until they change or remove that feature in a future update.
If you accept their demands and use a Windows online login to access your own computer, you've provided them with the password they can use for all their services. This is one reason I'm adamant about not logging into the online account on my Windows, but they keep making that harder and harder to do when you install Windows.
When they try this hard to force you into their cloud environment, it becomes increasingly obvious they cannot be trusted. They're getting something out of it they can monetize (or use to appease the NSA, who the hell knows).
Literal malware OS.
And zero user respect.
It feels nice to use an OS that never bothers you.
This comment is too low.
We used to blackball corporations that helped themselves to our data and firmly label them as spyware and viruses.
What we're dealing with now is a virus being built into windows by Microsoft. Microsoft cannot be trusted or supported any longer.
and began backing up
You mean "stealing". They are copying your data onto THEIR servers where you have no control over them.
You need a network monitor. I use networx. It puts a graph on the taskbar that shows any data coming in or out.
began backing up everything in my documents/videos/pictures
Stealing. The word you are looking for is stealing, not "backing up". This is data theft on a massive global scale.
Yup, and IP theft as well. I’ve consistently warned my coworkers about storing source code or sensitive company documents locally.
Windows LOVES to restore settings to default on updates, it's super annoying.
Yes. And a whole bunch of other shit that nobody but Microsoft wants. Check Task Manager and see what other bullshit is running in the background.
They added Edge to my startup programs. I caught that when disabling One Drive (for the umpteenth time).
We saw that you disabled one drive. Surly that is a mistake so we’ve gone ahead and reenabled it. You’re welcome.
Our latest patch accidentally reactivated One Drive for users that had switched it off. This was totally another accident and not us trying to make you upload your data to our servers, so we can use it to train AI and work out what ads to put on your desktop.
It also doesn't copy and encrypt a copy of our new Stalker Screenshot Software and send those copies exclusively to OneDrive for other forms of AI training. Nope, nuh uh, never gonna Totally happen by accident or anything.
Our new stalker screenshot app does not provide a perfect, easy-to-access repository of all your data for anyone that can gain access to your computer! And definitely not to our servers! It only saves locally, we pinky swear!
"We saw that a vast majority of users were disabling the Windows Search from searching Bing, so we removed the option and left it enabled by default. Enjoy the dumbing down of the entire internet."
IT jobs are fucking insane now that the average person has 0 clue how to search for a file. I want to open Minecraft to play it, not search the fucking internet for it.
Seriously feels like there is a dedicated team at Microsoft actively trying to make their product as bad as possible. No other explanation.
“You used a root command to disable OneDrive. Surely you meant, ‘root for OneDrive!’”
Hans Moleman: “I was saying ‘Root for OneDrive.’”
Once a week I get some sort of alert from Windows Defender that there are critical issues with my system security.
It's always "You've disabled OneDrive, please re-enable it for your security."
That is such horseshit. It ends up being a security risk because people will stop paying attention and ignore legit problems found with security.
people will stop paying attention and ignore legit problems found with security
That ship sailed with Vista and UAC.
What irritates me to no fucking end is the fact that Windows Defender finds issues with modded game files and will fuck up your entire installation without you realizing. What's worse? OneDrive comes in behind it and puts all old files in the moment you try to reinstall. What. The. Fuck.
We all live at Microsoft now. We just log in to MS Terminals.
Goddamn they got me too.
God I long for the days of Win 7. Or that you could set up a computer and it would stay relatively the same. Now every update threatens to change your default browser to Edge and to disable every privacy option that you have.
MS is guaranteed to "back up" all of this data and then lose the data. Theyve got a really poor history of security. At one point you could get into anybody's hotmail account with just their email address and the password "eh" with no quotes. They failed to renew the domain registration for hotmail. My LinkedIn has been pwned [Edit:] twice three times, in mass breaches due to MS [2012 released in 2016, 2021, 2023,] .........
Everyone wants to backup your data then charge you for it. My phone keeps asking me to backup. Recent requests have been tricky in that it's on to backup and I have to deselect the option. I'll likely have less technology going forward. Apparently, selling my information has become paramount to having me as a customer.
There are still people running Windows 7, I kinda admire it. There are modders releasing fixes so modern games will still run on Windows 7.
I upgraded to 10 like a year or two back and regret it near daily as a heavy PC user.
The explorer search is completely broken and doesn't update when you delete or move files from its results.
explorer steals focus the moment it finishes a copy or move regardless of what you're doing (not great when hitting shift+delete on some files while moving others for example, on top of just being plain annoying and bad design which interrupts my work flow).
explorer doesn't show basic media info like resolution for files down the bottom, making it a huge PITA when dealing with things like multi-resolution material textures, or when trying to prune low quality versions of images which you have multiple versions of. You can sacrifice like 1/5th of the screen and thumbnails on screen to a huge mostly-empty bar on the right which is 99% wasted space, just to show that tiny bit of text which used to show at the bottom of explorer and didn't need changing.
there's no volume control per application like there was in windows 7, which while not frequently useful was useful enough that I needed it from time to time and now have lost it for no reason.
I'm not upgrading to 11, at this point I'm going to work out how to linux rather than deal with another round of 'tablet users design a PC interface'. It's clear the people making PC software now don't actually know how to use PCs efficiently, and are ruining it for people who do.
It's starting to ruin Chrome as well, the web browser whose all thing was minimalism and no-nonsense now has animation on opening right click menus which become incredibly annoying as a heavy user, huge spacing around options which means reflexive wrist moves to get to copy no longer work. They just implemented a new colour scheme system for Chrome with a non-functional colour picker with only hue, no choice for brightness or saturation, basic things which were solved 40+ years ago. You can only get darker shades by changing to dark mode, but then vector fav icons and the tabs bar background are both dark so web icons are invisible, and you can't have a dark top bar by itself to differentiate from bright web content like was perfectly functional before, so it now turns google search and image search dark, which looks ass on image search.
And get this, there's an advanced Chrome customization option only available to people in the US, which uses some sort of AI - they need a heavy machine learning model instead of just letting you set hue and saturation. I use ML all day but that's got to be one of the dumbest, most emissions-wasteful possible uses for it. Big corp incompetence is ruining modern PC usage, breaking things which worked perfectly fine.
there's no volume control per application like there was in windows 7, which while not frequently useful was useful enough that I needed it from time to time and now have lost it for no reason.
Isn't that volume mixer? I still have access to that on Windows 10.
XP and 7 were still the best
You could truly customize your own Desktop. Now we have to tolerate so many bloated menus.
In a way Win 10 was a blessing because it was finally bad enough to make me stop using Windows.
I ditched Microsoft over the weekend, after 34 years of running Windows.
I went over to Mint Linux for my server, all my virtual machines, ditched Outlook for Thunderbird, and I'll probably install Linux on my laptop soon which will be the last Windows install that I have.
Fuck You Microsoft, you're fucking everyone, so fuck you!
I'll never advise anyone to install Windows ever again.
For now I think I'm safe on Win10, since they stopped updates for it. If it comes down to having to install Win11, Ill be moving to linux then.
By the time you "have" to upgrade to Windows 11 (due to Windows 10 EoL), there will probably be third-party apps and Powershell scripts that disable this garbage.
Yea, but I just dont want to deal with the way MS has been going with Win11 and beyond. Im hanging on to 10 because it works fine. Ive used 11 on other computers and it just doesnt offer much more to me lol.
Ive had to deal with workarounds in the past, using 3rd party apps and the like, for things like nVidia's physX, just to install and play some games. Id rather not have to do that with my OS too lol.
Microsoft just undoes those changes now. You litterally /cant/ stop microsoft if they really want to fuck you. They have more power over your PC then you do as long as you are online.
Checks task manager. God Dammit Google Chrome wtf are you doing!
Same but MS Teams.
Yes. And a whole bunch of other shit that nobody but Microsoft wants.
True. You paid full price for the OS, just like you pay full price for your car. There is no reason anything more than what you asked should be added. And not to mention some newer cars require a subscription to use the hardware already in your car, again, use the Hardware Already In The Car. Ex: Electric Heated Seats.
Check Task Manager and see what other bullshit is running in the background.
This is a very big grey area. Unless you're familiar with the OS and your software to tell what is what, let alone the dozen processes running under the same name(s), most anyone isn't going to understand half of what they see.
But...I agree, there is a lot of MS Software running most people don't need. For the love of...please stop pre-installing MS Office. 95% of my clients have it removed before they install their own, mainly due to versioning conflicts, even with their own O365 MS Office doesn't work half the time, and "reinstall" from your account resolves it.
The office issue you mentioned is infuriating. To be fair, though, that is because of the hardware manufacturer. ASUS, for some bizarre reason, put Office separately for each language on the ROG Ally, a handheld gaming PC. They also take ages to uninstall. When you do a fresh install of Windows from the official ISO, you do not get all these Office apps.
Probably because they got paid $5-10 from MS to install a 90 day trial version and may have gotten bonuses based on the percentage of "PCs" that they sold with Office trials pre-installed. Dell used to charge about an extra $50-70 to NOT install all of the crapware/trialware on a new domestic PC/laptop.
My favorite one particularly back in the days of XP. Was that an installation of Office would create a load of blank registry entries. That were only filled in during the first run. With virtually every reg optimiser deleting all of the blank entries. Breaking Office on the first run. If you were lucky you could just reinstall Office but it often needed an OS reinstall. "MSVCRT.DLL not found" will for ever be imprinted on my mind.
When I was a kid I had trouble comb through that and end everything not necessary just to okay command and conquer without lag.
Just a matter of time before they disable or severely limit the Task Manager.
Is ProcMon (Pricess Manager) still available. It was an XP era third party task manager. With far more features than the built in Windows version and could be run without installing it or admin rights.
I may have used it to put cyber cafes countdown timers into suspended (priority 0) mode. So that having bought a ticket, I could use the computer for as long as I wanted to. Even when the Windows task manager was unavailable or killing the process caused the computer to reboot. In suspended state it was still there but couldn't do anything. So the "Watchdog" to see that it was still running still saw it.
I have a remediation task running in my enterprise to remove all the junk. You realize how bad it is when you have to keep updating it as they change things. It’s out of control.
My daughter was wondering why The Sims 4 suddenly broke for her.
OneDrive turned itself on and hijacked the Documents folder, so the game couldn't find her saves or mods.
Oh fuck. Gonna have to disable one drive if this is the case with mods.
This is my main problem with OneDrive: Most savegames are stored in the documents folder and onedrive completely fucks up the file paths. I deactivated, uninstalled and completely removed everything onedrive related (as far as it let me) and Ubisoft STILL has its default savegame location set as the onedrive documents clone
OneDrive is borderline malware. It rewrites your file paths and starts de facto holding them ransom if you run out of space. It's very nefarious and cannot be easily completely removed because Windows considers it an "essential service".
If you right-click on any of these folders in file explorer: Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music, or Videos then click on properties, there's a "Location" tab that lets you change the file path. It might be possible to add multiple paths but I might be misremembering seeing that feature.
But IMO doing a fresh install completely offline and uninstalling / changing all the settings before connecting to the internet is the best way to prevent that mess.
This will fail for any user folder that OneDrive has its little malware claws in so you need to jump through hoops to unhook it before you can move them.
I do this quite a lot at work for people. All you usually have to do is turn off backup in OneDrive settings then copy the contents of the Desktop, Documents and Pictures folders in your OneDrive folder back to the original location. Then log out of OneDrive if you don't use it. OneDrive basically creates some kind of shortcut of the file and moves the actual file to the OneDrive folder. It's annoying, but usually a quick fix. If you use CMD and CD into those directories before moving things back you'll find they're actually empty. If you CD into those directories using CMD after moving them back, they should then be listed there.
Not that helpful if you have the problem now, but stuff like this is why I only use local accounts on my personal computers since 10. I absolutely don't want "Microsoft accounts" signing into everything.
Next time when you're setting up a computer and at the OOBE hit Shift-F10 then when CMD launches type oobe\bypassnro and hit enter. When setup doesn't have network, it'll allow you to create a local account from the start. When it asks, click the option saying you don't have internet instead of connecting to WiFi.
You shouldn't have to do any of this shit though.
The average user is going to have no clue that they can even set up a local account in a new Windows 11 install because the option appears to simply not exist at all. It's malicious deception to force compliance into an ecosystem that many users do not want.
The average user is going to have no clue that they can even set up a local account in a new Windows 11 install because the option appears to simply not exist at all. It's malicious deception to force compliance into an ecosystem that many users do not want.
I'm a software engineer and ex it admin. Queue my confusion when installing Windows 11 to a VM and I HAD to login to my microsoft account, which is also hosting my one drive and other services.
So, a VM for one application now has my entire file history and I've no clue how to actually unlink it. As you said there used to be a local account option but I tried everything to get it to show and nothing worked!!
Absolutely rotten experience.
Queue
Cue. A Queue is a line.
I would like to add that I personally only use offline accounts, and I've never had the onedrive folder even accessible. Clicking on it asks me to sign in before it can be used. My file structure is still like it used to be on older windows. I've also never had my settings change during an update. Completely disabling edge by modifying file names and things like that still get fixed, but no settings have changed so far after a few years.
this didnt work for me on the documents folder, it kept failing saying the folder already existed. I found a registry work around but such a pain the the ass
onedrive settings -> sync & backup -> manage backup -> deselect everything. everyone should do that first thing upon every fresh windows install
I signed out of OneDrive and since it's not connected to any account, it hasn't done anything.
Copy the contents of your OneDrive folder elsewhere so they are backed up and not in the OneDrive folder hierarchy, then sign out.
Just my recommendation.
Except on modern Windows 10/11 installs the Documents user folder is considered part of the OneDrive folder hierarchy and lots of stuff just writes to it regardless.
Yes... but if there is no OneDrive connected account, it just sits there.
The point of copying stuff out was so that you don't lose it when OneDrive signs out, not to never use it.
Not if you use a local account
It's possible to remove OneDrive, just annoying to do so. I always strip it from new Win11 installs, as well as forcing local accounts (which MS has made very annoying as well)
Rewrites your file paths?
For example, your documents are no longer in your Documents folder, they're in your OneDrive\Documents folder. If you try to sign out, disable, uninstall OneDrive, it just deletes that folder and leaves the files in the cloud, instead of moving the files back to the regular Documents folder. Basically it changes the default location of your Documents folder, which isn't immediately obvious.
Microsoft seems to be doing whatever they want with no oversight. They will continue doing everything in their power to extract as much data from their users as possible.
The level of gall by all these software corporations right now is off the charts, and people are not talking about it enough. MS wants to take frequent snapshots of everything you're doing on your computer. Adobe wants access to everything you do in Photoshop. And I'm sure there's much more to come. They will keep hammering at it until they get their way, unless new laws come into place, and quick.
There should be comprehensive data privacy laws, the amount of furry porn I have is not going to look good when the Christofascists get in to power.
Microsoft is doing whatever they can to get me off their OS. And they have succeeded. The only machine I have that still runs Windows is my gaming PC, and I am considering moving to Linux with Proton on it as well.
I’m seriously hoping for a class action against Microsoft over the forced MS account and OneDrive integration so they can drop this bullshit already, but who knows.
Account is a strong nag but I still operate an offline account to this day.
On fresh install get a command prompt (shift f10) then oobe/bypassnro to install without an online account.
You need a command prompt now? It was just a slightly-hard-to-see highlighted small font text button at the bottom corner in Windows 10 install.
But yeah hard to spy on me and tie it to a user account if I never give Microsoft a user account to begin with.
You had to be physically disconnected to access that option, too
Hell yeah, that's now standards operation in our department. The vets started grumbling when they finally had to do some Win11 installs themselves. I dropped that and gained a bunch of points. I may not have decades of "professional" experience, but I'm the king of these little fixes.
Sounds like I should never upgrade to 11.
I'm in the same (stubborn fuck you Micro$oft) boat but some other W10 users have started reporting shenanigans already...
JHC I hate OneDrive. I can't tell you how many things I have lost due to it.
Edit: just checked Startup and tasks and it is not active on my system that I can see
I think one drive is refusing to save one of my documents. I'll explicitely hit save and then close the document, and then without fail the next time I open it up it tells me that document recovery recovered the file and it's just the same file I had saved and closed without any changes...
I've had documents get corrupted and need to be copied into a new document to work correctly. I fucking hate onedrive, sharepoint, and constantly working in live documents in stripped down versions of programs.
Onedrive corrupted my Sims 4 game once. For whatever reason, all the critical files for the game went to OneDrive, and when I got it shut off, and later tried playing Sims, the game wouldn't open, figured out the files were on OD, tried restoring them, Sims still wouldn't launch, had to reinstall, but also lost the saves somehow so had to start an entire lineage from scratch. I hate OneDrive with a passion, it just makes using any windows system so much worse, it's like they pre-installed a virus into their OS for no reason.
"the cloud" is a perpetual cash printing machine. Once people start putting 1tb of data on MS servers, they know you will pay them indefinitely.
They want all of us doing this and they're not going to stop until you finally give in and just do it. Then they'll constantly fill it up with useless data from your microsoft account they forced on you and then you suddenly need 2tb of space. I know people who can barely afford rent but they pay apple $200 a year for renting a fucking few gb of space in icloud. its scary and sad.
One of the reasons I won't use a Microsoft account
I bought a new computer early May, using Windows 11 for the first time. Wouldn’t let me use the damn thing until I created a Microsoft account.
Saturday night I start getting spams about suspicious logins to my brand new Microsoft account from Wichita, and Brazil two hours later. Not even two month after creating the damn account it’s compromised. I have no faith in MS
There are ways around that screen. You basically hit a keystroke to open command prompt then enter a command and it bypasses the Microsoft account “features”
Wish it made that readily apparent for those of us who don’t do much computer stuff. Sure seemed required. I don’t have any cool Microsoft stuff like office so idk what they’d even be hacking with my Microsoft acct
You can get around connecting a Microsoft account if you do a little googling. A clean install would be worth it to me to not have my PC connected to a Microsoft account.
The recent news about Win11 really suck because at some point I have to switch. I am dreading it
I'm keeping Win 10 LTSC as long as possible.
11 IoT Enterprise LTSC (24H2) might continue to keep out the crap, here is to hoping
For the last week or so, when I boot my computer and enter my password, win11 shows a spinner for about 30-120 seconds before loading into the desktop.
What the fuck are you thinking about, windows? Open my desktop. Don’t contact your home planet and hang for 3 minutes on a response. Do the most basic thing imaginable and load your operating system without choking with 0 feedback. You are an interactive advertisement written on a wet paper bag.
Have you checked your startup programs in task manager as well as any tasks in task scheduler that run on login? You might just have a bunch of programs loading on startup and/or login that's slowing everything down
Part of what sucks is that it is no longer a list of 0turn these things off.” The way they changed the default web browser thing is deliberately obtuse and confusing. There’s no need to set for each different thing that could possibly open up a webpage, but you do. It’s vile.
this is straight up theft
My Documents? Nah. These are Microsoft Documents now.
That should be a few billions of fines in the EU.
Stealing disguised as a service. I wonder how much of the stuff that gets uploaded will be used to train their AI models.
EU do your antitrust thang.
Waiting for the antitrust 2.0 lawsuit over edge to start. They obviously didn't learn with IE that they need a reminder. You literally can't open a help link in your browser of choice it FORCES you to use edge.
While the US is starting to go after companies I doubt they will with MS again. They really need to and add in Meta, Alphabet, Amazon to the list as well. The rather go after Apple cause Apple keeps giving them the finger on not adding back doors to the end to end encryption of various protocols. Please do not take this as I love Apple I think they deserve to be looked at for other reasons.
A thing that Apple don't do is to give a middle finger to USA. Remember when they got caught giving notifications to authorities without subpoena?
Onedrive is annoying af. It likes defaulting to saving shit there, which is stupid af when installing games. It's easy to mindlessly click and end up with a mess when Sims 3 eats all the space and can't save.
For me, it’s not the install of a game, but the saved game location defaulting to OneDrive that kills me.
I don't understand how Microsoft gets away with so much shit they shove into billions of users mouth.
People make a big deal whenever Elon Musk opens his mouth but when Microsoft shoves W11 right in front of your face when you just turned on the computer and have for the 202nd time decline their offer.
Also forcing users to use their new Outlook and if you want the old UI back then they'll force you to use the new Outlook the next time you startup your pc again.
Another example is how they buy companies just to consume them and/or cripple them and kill even the slightest competition they sense.
How are many of their actions even legal?
I remember my entire desktop was on onedrive and I had no idea. I deleted one drive and my entire desktop disappeared lol.
noticed recently Excel also sneakily changed its default setting to save to OneDrive and my recent documents tab defaulted to OneDrive folder.
i think they are greedy for as much data as they can harvest from everyone to use it to train their AI
not that they weren't greedy about your data before, but for other reason.
They removed local autosave a long time ago and require you use one drive.
Microsoft is and has been a scummy company for a LONG time.
This makes me think of when people would take photos to be developed at Walmart. This couple were getting pics developed and there were pics of their infant baby in the bathtub among the photos so the idiot working at the Walmart in Texas reported them to the police for having child pornography. The couple spent a better part of a decade fighting it in court to get the charges dropped.
Something like this could happen with this. Once Microsoft has your stuff you have no control over what they do with it.
You mean like Google did? https://gizmodo.com/google-csam-photodna-1849440471 I bet Microsoft did too, just didn't find on news.
That already happened with apple. Some guy took a picture of a rash or something on their kids genitals and sent it to the doctor as instructed. Apple thought it was CP and made his life hell.
Yup! I noticed this last week on my work PC. Even after I uninstalled the Software! The next update, it was back! It's like a Virus.
That's because it is a Virus.
The one time I accidentally enabled OneDrive, it corrupted all my personal default Windows folders to the point I had to reinstall Windows. And guess what? The error persisted even through a Windows reinstall because the error apparently was in the Microsoft cloud services. So it kept enabling itself on Windows first run after the reinstall because Windows reinstall forces you to log into a Microsoft account before it will log you onto the desktop. It was such a friggin nightmare. The only thing that ended the loop of OneDrive corrupting my folders everytime was by installing another cloud drive program (ProtonDrive) that took over and encrypted my Windows personal folders which blocked OneDrive from hijacking them ever again.
Like bro, somebody SERIOUSLY didn't think OneDrive through before launching it to the world. Microsoft overall has been getting sloppy ever since they ended Windows 8
Never do a fresh install of Window$ with your internet hooked up. Unplug the ethernet or do not install your wireless hardware until you are good and up and running.
I'm personally convinced One Drive is just deliberately difficult to uninstall and devastating to your computer if you try, in the hopes you'll fork over money to Microsoft to get your files back. In other words, literal ransomware.
I haven't been happy with a Windows operating system since 7.
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12d
Microsoft can get fucked. I went to Linux mint. All I lost because of it were a few games I couldn't manage to get running, but that's way better than the hassle I was having with windows .
I hate OneDrive so much. “Where are my files?” The little note that appears in my folder triggers an unbelievable amount of rage. I felt like it took my files hostage and I couldn’t afford to pay for it…
If you own your PC, want to continue to use Windows \coughmasochistscough**, and don't want OneDrive at all: Run PowerShell, then paste this into it.
winget uninstall --id "Microsoft.OneDrive"
Customary reminder that if you need to use Windows then Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 will get security updates until 2031. The official Microsoft ISOs are not that hard to find and it is trivially easy to activate, but if you don't Linux is right there.
When I first set up windows 10 One drive caused me to delete GBs of documents because it keep automatically syncing. The documents on my desktop kept getting deleted after backing up it in the cloud. I had to delete the backup because it used up all the space. It was an absolute nightmare to figure out why the fuck it was backing up and deleting it files from my local drive. Onedrive is a fucking piece of shit. I was lucky I had backups. I don't even log on to one drive for the fear of losing my files like that again. Fucking asshole design!
That's why you never login with a Microsoft account. Just a local account. Yes, it is a hassle during the initial setup, but you don't have to deal with bullshit like this.
Can't believe I am now one of those guys but... moved to Fedora a month ago and couldn't be happier. Never looking back.
Oh look another reason why I'm happy to have gone back to Linux
When is all this fuckery with Windows 11 and OneDrive going to hurt their stock price?
MSFT is actively working on making their product inferior. Keep this up long enough, and someone will eat their lunch.
AI ain’t gonna train itself!
i swear my next OS after windows 10 will be linux
I uninstall Onedrive right after any installation. I don't like and refuse to use cloud storage services, which is apparently a hot take these days for some reason.
Chris Titus Tech made a tool that lets you uninstall as much of the Windows bloatware as you want. Works perfectly and never had so much as a hiccup using it on 3 different PC builds.
I left Windows for Linux (Pop!_OS in particular) Feb 2023... And i only went back for like a week to play Starfield as it had issues at the time (though it works fine now)... I've enjoyed linux so much and all the games just work, thanks to the steam deck and proton. I'm forever done with windows now, good riddance.
M$ FeaturesTM - Optional, until they're not.
No one should be surprised by this. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last.
My OneDrive has been full for months and prompts me to pay for more storage. I had no intention of ever using it and I’m sure as hell not going to buy more space on it
Another thing (trivial in comparison) is how they have changed the Hotmail page to auto link you to office 365. I just want to check my emails not open a bazillion tabs before hand!
Spyware and adware in one. The ultimate malware!
My husband suddenly passed away last year from cancer. Before he died, he finished a novel manuscript. I had it backed up on a portable hard drive and on my desktop computer, but his last changes were on his laptop. I hadn't been able to face working on it until now. When I turned on his laptop, it demanded updating, and I lost all his last updates during the messy process (ended up having to reinstall windows). We never ok'd using OneDrive - never liked the idea of having his prepublicstion work on the cloud. It feels like they stole his book and his last words.
The moment windows was done setting up, I uninstalled OneDrive before I even updated my drivers.
What a way to kill your golden eggs goose.
Steam gaming is the only reason I’m still on Windows 10.
All my media and productivity needs I prefer MacOS now.
If Windows keep this bullshit up, I might seriously consider switching to SteamOS on my main gaming PC. I’ve tried steamOS with Proton on SteamDeck and it works very well.
That is not fucking acceptable. Boundaries you tech company assholes!
What really got me frustrated is turning off one drive still keeps your documents on a one drive specific folder. File history doesn’t backup this folder. I lost my documents because I didn’t want one drive and didn’t know there was a separate local documents folder.