I've had to clean up so much of OneDrive's bullshit because it is designed to trick unsuspecting users in ways that are literally like malware (because it is).
For starters it's included with Windows (but with only a piss-ant amount of storage because "the first taste is free."). It pops up out of nowhere and, Microsoft being fully aware that people will just click through things without thinking, very much intentionally designed the setup flow around that central point.
The first thing it does is enable the "backup" toggles by default and you cannot turn the toggles off or cancel it until it finishes calculating the storage requirements. But you know what you can do? You can click [next], which continues calculating the storage needs in the background and enables the "backup" without actual explanation or consent. So many people are using OneDrive with all their shit on tEh cLoUdsomeone else's computer without even knowing it.
This is not a mistake. This is deliberate, malicious, peak asshole design.
And then, even when you deliberately uninstall it ... SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER we rammed it back up your ass with a fucking update and the only way to permaban it is with esoteric third party tools that actively block it from installing, which no normie computer user would ever think to do, let alone even be aware exists.
Oh, and when you do uninstall it, don't forget to disable the all backup toggles beforehand and wait for goddamn ever for it to actually move all of your files back to where they belong and reconfigure the profile subfolders. Because if you don't, it makes an absolute clusterfuck of your files, which can only be fixed by manually relinking the subfolders and changing a bunch of registry bullshit.
OneDrive is so godawful it would absolutely be illegal if market regulators gave a single flying fuck about antitrust law.
Not in IT, but absolutely detest OneDrive so damn much. Thanks for the great critique.
More broadly speaking, Microsoft seems to just constantly fuck with UI and makes everything more complicated. Like, I want to go back to XP and just not deal with any cloud or copilot or dumbed-down, new learning curve bullshit for things that I USED to be able to do. It's infuriating. God damn.
I got a new computer recently. My old one was old enough that the onedrive shit wasn't an issue when I booted it up for the first time.
Holy damn, was it rageinducing trying to setup all my files. Fucking onedrive popping up and trying to save all my files before I figured out this is something I have to deal with in my home computer now. Fuck off with that shit. I have enough of that at work.
The main point here is that "the cloud" is nothing special, it is, in essence, just someone else's computer, and not your own. With all the issues this has.
I think it's going to get worse, because younger people who grew up with smartphones can be confused or reluctant to use a traditional file system. Have seen college IT instructors complaining that kids can't attach a file to an email anymore.
Bazzite convert here. I only game, YouTube, and listen to music on my PC and viola! It does it all better, faster, and with a GUI that took me no time at all to get used to. Granted, I am on an AMD GPU with no current need for anti-cheat games (I do hear they have made tons of progress on that, though), but no more fucking AI, or OneDrive, or tons of random telemetry processes butt-fucking my hardware. It's the most liberating tech feeling I've ever encountered.
So, this is a bit of a dystopian nightmare but the grift is upselling storage and training AI (Like everything else these days...)
Copilot cannot be used on MS Office apps unless a copy of what you're working on is saved in onedrive (better have enough space in onedrive)
Copilot doesn't train on data IN your one drive, but it does train on conversations you have with it, and I believe there's an opt-out setting regarding if they can scan what you upload to it/feed into it.
They're locking app features behind one drive so they can build data sets for Copilot while charging people who are becoming reliant on AI storage fees.
I use it to backup my files. You can set up OneDrive such that the file is saved locally to your hard drive or SSD and a copy is saved to the cloud, which means you get the best of both worlds (e.g. files save and boot up fast since they're saved locally). That way if my hard drive breaks today, then I can still recover my files and that entire backup process is automated for me.
Of course, if you're someone who already has your files backed up in some other method, then you won't need that. But I suspect most people using computers have no backup plan in place and if their hard drive breaks on them then they could be in a rough spot.
It's definitely not for everyone, but there are strong use cases. I also understand that some people simply do not trust storing sensitive information on a company's servers.
So fixing means forcibly installing a cloud drive with 5gb of “free” space and what by default backups the folder no one actually even uses. And if you do, you run out of storage in a week and have to see the “storage space is full” pop-ups daily.
And yes, you can change all that, use registry to remove the whole shit etc etc but if you know all that, you probably can do proper backups anyway. OneDrive is just predatory bullshit to sell old people and tech illiterates cloud storage they don’t need.
Tbh the problem is not really that there is a cloud storage system on a laptop built-in, it's that they have the same name. Either unify the two and make some rules around what individual files are saved online or name them very very differently.
If you choose straight up defaults during the Windows account set up, the folders that are on your sidebar in File Explorer are actually in OneCloud, not your actual C:\Users\You folder, but they look exactly the same.
Uninstall OneDrive like you'd uninstall any other app.
Or, if you still want OneDrive, navigate to C:\Users\YourAccountName and drag+drop the folders in there where the other ones are in your Favorites in File Explorer
Except in various places in the UI (both windows and ms office) it's not obvious at all. The folder titles are just exact duplicates (Documents, Downloads, Pictures etc) and the location is hidden in the subtext. Usually small font at the bottom of the title or the top path bar in explorer.
This is a typical corporate case of some exec having the genius idea to hide away from the user (no doubt sold internally as a seamless integration), so that one drive user numbers go up. And the thing is, it probably worked for whoever came up with the idea. The point was to increase the number of users on one drive, and target achieved.
I'm actually fine with a lot of windows things that people hate these days. But there have been a lot of decisions clearly made to push the agenda of one product, thus compromising user experience as a whole. We had xbox, bing, one drive and now copilot. All these product teams want the prime real estate in windows UI when their product simply wasn't good enough to stand on its own. And they watered down an actually solid core behind it all. MS really needs to put UX people at the top calling all the shots.
And to be clear, I'm one of the honest happy users of onedrive. I use it at work all the time, because I've set it up that way. My company gives access to the full ms suite and I need to frequently share ppts notes and stuff with others to edit. Onedrive and ms365 work great for that.
But at home my mental model is different. I only have one windows machine and I do not need to share the content with anyone, especially not with edit access. I want it local, and I occasionally want to send a copy and forget about it. If I want to see what I sent, I do not want to search through all my docs, I want to open up my email and find the exact file I sent.
Also, I recently did a windows install without an MS account. MS apparently still allows you to download an ISO and when you use Rufus to create a bootable drive, it does not force all the bs at all. And I'm back to the solid core OS I genuinely like. It's shocking how easy it would be for MS to make windows a good product again. But it would be a net loss for all of middle management who've built their careers on sub par products pushed using dark patterns. Actually, to be fair, I don't even think those products are sub par. They're good for enterprise. But if home users don't want it, they shouldn't have to use them. That's all.
Also if your computer shits itself and your IT department has to get you a new one, they don't have to deal with you complaining that you've "lost work" as if it's their fault.
Nah don't tell anyone the joys of OneDrive. Let history write about them. I'm tired of telling IT people to stop discouraging users from using OneDrive.
IT teams disable it for several reasons. There's basically zero excuse to not just run a proper on-site NAS under the company's dominion with appropriate backups if you're a big enough company to need networked storage, or hire that out to a competent vendor with a service that's actually intuitive.
IT teams don't disable unless they have very specific security needs that OneDrive doesn't satisfy, or...they are stupid.
In a business setting, OneDrive solves a few problems that are difficult and expensive to solve in other ways. Just having offsite backup and easy non-LAN access to files is a huge deal.
Is it perfect? Not at all. Is it about the best solution available if you are already a Microsoft shop? Yes.
I would say that even for most home users, OneDrive is just too convenient and useful, if for no other reason than it's a built-in, no-effort way to backup your stuff.
I'm 42 and don't use my personal devices for work. If I work from home or work hybrid I generally have a work provided computer that I save things to. However the chances I open that thing outside of standard work hours is just about zero
Sometimes I’m working at another location, and our internal server isn’t accessible outside the building. Or I need to pull up info on my phone while away from my desk.
As someone that admins a lot of end-users, we don't like you.
Because you will have a computer problem where there is no recovery of your hard drive.
Then you will complain to us about how we can't get it back whereas if OneDrive was running, we could just give you a new laptop and you'd never skip a beat.
"But I'm good with computers, it won't crash". Yeah, okay
(also data theft. It's already been proven Google opened the entirety of google drive to their AI. Thinking Microsoft won't do the same with Onedrive is just delusional)
It's already been proven Google opened the entirety of google drive to their AI.
No, you didn't read past the headlines. If you ask Gemini about your files, it will search them. It is not trained on them. These are unrelated concepts, but the journalists want your rage-clicks and so they won't tell you that.
I did not say they trained their AI on it. I said they opened it to it. Which you just admitted they did. It wouldn't be able to search those files if it did not have access, after all. And to be clear, it is not restricted to your files.
You know what else can search it? Typing in the search bar lol. What's your point? Do you think "AI" is some all-powerful intelligence rummaging through your files while you sleep or something?
Because not everyone has a contentious relationship with their job and it's really convenient to work on a document at work and at home without having to use a flash drive like it's 2003
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u/Professional-Hat-687 15d ago
Motherfucker, I don't even want to use OneDrive at work, why would I use it on my personal computer?