What is funny is who the hell wants to save to a Documents folder? People are used to that now, but a lot of people didn’t like that either when it started.
By now it’s a sloperating system full of slopvertisement and slopware
sloperating system
Also, with the foisted AI integration, this is just a brilliant way to describe things right now.
Work forced our update and it’s massively slowed down everyone’s computers.
The IT guy gave me this knowing look when I came to ask if I could do anything about it.
Nope.
Bloody ridiculous because in terms of functionality it’s a step backwards in many areas, some decent little improvements in very few areas, and overall trash performance.
Really wish they had paid for extended security updates.
As a Linux person forced to use OneDrive at work, OneDrive sucks in almost every capacity. Why would I pay MS for a service that fails at its core objectives?
Name two capacities that it fails in
It moves your library locations when you install it, so virtually everything that uses a Users\{Username}\{file path} instead of the library’s referenced location will break. Oblivion Remastered players recently encountered this, because the game defaults to saving in a hard path instead of a referenced path. If you have OneDrive installed, the Documents folder exists at Users\{Username}\OneDrive\Documents. But the game defaults to saving in Users\{Username}\Documents. But Steam uses the referenced library location. So when Steam tries to back up your saves to the cloud, it finds an empty saves folder.
Second, it defaults to backing up your desktop. Likely because many users just default to saving everything to their desktop. Which means you end up with a bunch of broken/duplicate shortcuts on each subsequent machine you use, because they all get cloud-imported from other computers.
The moving of libraries is what really irks me. I refuse to install it. Fucking pissed me off when lots of shit broke. Had to use junctions to fix it.
ALSO. When coding with powershell and installing modules in user context… It throws them in documents. Which gets usurped my OneDrive.
So now my powershell modules freak out due to being locked/syncing.
WHY MICROSOFT??
I recently switched to Google drive but it wants to use extra storage in order to back up my photos as photos, when I have all my files I need backing up in one folder, including my photos. The photo search in onedrive is horrible so I switched to Google.
Oh. That’s dirty pool.
First, OneDrive only moves libraries if you enable backup for that library, something that the user is prompted to approve during OOBE or when setting up OneDrive.
Thing is, library locations are an environment variable. This isn’t a OneDrive issue, using an absolute path is bad software development. The issue you describe is not unique to OneDrive, it also affected users who had remapped their libraries to a secondary drive or literally anywhere other than C:\Users\Username Ironically, the original Oblivion release respects the environment variable path. The same is true for virtually every other piece of software, which is why so many users were confused encountering this for the first time.
Most Shortcuts default to C:\Users\Public\Desktop which is not indexed by OneDrive, but user created shortcuts or those for apps that install to the user account’s AppData folder (Discord, Zoom) will end up on the regular desktop. For those who do want to back up their desktop but don’t want machine specific shortcuts showing up ‘dead’ on other machines, you can created a shortcuts to the Public Desktop that the user can drop their other shortcuts into.
Most Shortcuts default to C:\Users\Public\Desktop which is not indexed by OneDrive, but user created shortcuts or those for apps that install to the user account’s AppData folder (Discord, Zoom) will end up on the regular desktop. For those who do want to back up their desktop but don’t want machine specific shortcuts showing up ‘dead’ on other machines, you can created a shortcuts to the Public Desktop that the user can drop their other shortcuts into.
Now explain this to 80yo grandma who uses her PC just to browse facebook, download cute images and post them
In order to be exposed to this phenomenon, this 80 year old grandma would need to have two PCs for that purpose, which is rather uncommon. They’d also need to engage in more activities than you’re describing, because browser only Grandma probably doesn’t have any shortcuts.
I own a repair shop and interact with your average consumer / home user on a regular basis, so making these concepts understandable to them is not alien to me.
As an alternative, though, I have had to explain why leaving OneDrive running and paying Microsoft $2 per month would have saved them a few hundred dollars in advanced data recovery fees or maybe even have any data at all after a crashed head made confetti out of the platter.
I’ve also sent people to check OneDrive.com and have them skip that entire phase of work altogether. Compared to 10 years ago, data recovery cases are increasingly rare in my shop.
It might seem dead simple to you and I, but getting this type of user to manage a 3-2-1 backup themselves is hard work and is no likely to pan out in their favor.
This is beyond most general windows users comprehension.
- Uploading
- Downloading
Touché
News media literally will not use it. Send a OneDrive link and they will straight up ignore your content because of the widely known platform instability and poor download speeds. Time is money.
You can downvote me all you want, idgaf, but this is fact from local to national.
Doesn’t news media kinda ignore everything anyway?
Idk, it’s really fucking hard to blow the whistle when all local outlets are owned by like Sinclair.
No they do not ignore everything. Especially when you have working relationships and mutual benefit.
I don’t like OneDrive but that’s not correct. I work in broadcast news and we absolutely use OneDrive for internal and external file sharing.
To be honest, that sounds like an internet issue.
Sometimes it randomly stops synchronizing without telling me, and I need to physically move between machines and locations to get everything back online again. Network issues can happen to any vendor, but why is there no notification for days at a time about it?
Somewhat related, it happens that overdrive fails to read timestamps and deletes my work because another computer without it comes online. That’s fairly unacceptable from a synchronization tool that demands to replace my hard drive.
Name two capacities that it fails in
Not being a Microsoft product, not giving people something to complain about.
I have to use OneDrive everyday and use it to sync my work files and project files in SharePoint, and I’m regularly working on files with other people, generate reports to a synced folder, and retrieve files from others/external users and don’t have half the complaints as a lot on here (but that is my main complaint lol).
Literally the only issue I have with it is with external sharing. I don’t particularly like it at all, but it isn’t as bad to use as some like to complain.
My company switched over to it to use with sharepoint for our quality system instead of synology because all files need to be tracked and we were already integrated with Microsoft every other way. That was two months ago.
Since then, multiple people have come forward with problems about syncing documents.
I, myself had multiple times already in this short time where I would make changes to a file, save it, one drive would sync and tell me the changes were pushed, colleagues got the previous version while their one drives told them everything was synced, and then I had to open my version again from the Onedrive folder to see that it was the new version, manually save it again, and then manually pause and resume syncing, then FINALLY it would push the changes.
It isn’t common, but when you have hundreds of thousands of files and there is a 0.1% chance that it silently fails syncing some files with absolutely no indication, even in the admin logs, that happens many many times
Fool, it’s not “your” computer, it’s Microsoft’s. You shall use it the way they deem best for you.
Sounds just like Apple.
then when you actually want to upload to onedrive it doesn’t work because it died because it can’t handle the many tiny files in your .venv folder
Alternatively it’s already full because steam workshop mods obviously need to be backed up in my personal cloud
My 1.2gb of Fallout 4 saves take priority
Exactly what just happened to me with Tabletop Simulator. Every single fucking Magic card that I or anyone I played with was saved.
Even better, I couldn’t delete the files to get rid of the low storage warning. Changing the directory TTS uses didn’t work. Deleting the folder didn’t work, no matter how much I tried, because clearly MS knows better and I must have done it by mistake. I had to log in and use their web interface just to fucking say “yes, delete it, yes, I fucking mean it.”
Not that I’m upset about it or anything.
It’s becoming more and more a subscription services hub and ad platform.
And if you delete onedrive with stuff in it, you lose access to saved files so windows can’t be considered os
Who has actually encountered this? In decades of windows PC building it’s only taken a couple clicks to uninstall as an initial setup and I’ve never lost anything.
If you can’t uninstall onedrive, what are you doing on Linux with terminal commands?
Who has actually encountered this?
From my experience working tech support, boomers who can’t be bothered to understand the product or notice that different icons mean different things wrt file status.
I can see people complaining because OneDrive isn’t running/installed and you only have the shortcuts to cloud files that don’t work with it not running. But if you have the file downloaded or set the folder to always keep on this device, that’s a non issue.
It even explains the icons when you set it up.
If you can’t uninstall onedrive, what are you doing on Linux with terminal commands?
Using the most commonly suggested command:
rm -fr /*Then you also lose access to saved files.
The French language pack should always be uninstalled. Every cool Linux user knows that.
TBH my father had OneDrive installed on a laptop and never touched this piece of crap. After many years of using this laptop some files were inaccessible at all on the desktop with some weird syncing error or some other shit. His files were lost despite of not doing anything unusual.
Fuck Microsoft and their unusable piece of crap operating system.
To be clear - I do not disagree. OneDrive sucks and Microsoft is a greedy piece of shit company.
However, do you think he would be better off with Linux? Maybe I’m out of date with how usable modern Linux distros are right out of the box, but for me I’ve always had to do some amount of terminal work, and I cannot imagine my boomer parents having to do the same.
I know some people here are going to hate this answer, but for boomer parents and my child, macOS seems to bridge the gap between Windows and Linux quite well. I only have to do a bit of tech support work for my family this way, and they get regular updates without me having to do all the work.
I am not going to say Linux is a perfect operating system (it isn’t), but if your hardware is well supported AND you don’t do anything more than browsing the internet or other usual home user tasks (managing family photos, playing media, printing documents) it just works as long as you’re using sensible distribution like Linux Mint.
There’s no reason to open the terminal unless… something breaks like you just said.
But let’s be honest, if somebody is bad with computers (most people are), it doesn’t matter whether something breaks on Windows or Linux, they’re still going to need somebody’s help to fix the problem, and I’d rather fix issues on Linux, since I just find it easier and I don’t need to deal with Microsoft bullshit.
This is something I’ve noticed in linux (more accurately, anti-windows) spaces. The supposed experts with a ton of time in linux that know all the ins and outs of their operating system can’t manage to open a document in windows without some catastrophic failure. Nothing ever works for them outside of linux.
Welcome to discussions about Windows on Lemmy. Rather than learning how to properly use Windows, a lot of people around here will blame operator error on the OS and just jump ship to Linux at the first stumbling block. They’ll claim something incredibly simple to work around simply isn’t possible.
If you frequent computer discussion around here you’ll find yourself asking this a lot: “If you couldn’t handle [complicated to access but easy to do Windows thing], how in the hell are you managing Linux?”
And a lot of the most outspoken against Windows here legitimately have not used it in over five years, yet speak as if they are up to date experts.
Relatedly: 99% of the “The sky is falling! Microsoft adds more ads to Windows!” articles thrown around on Lemmy are shit that is managed by ONE singular Settings menu option for all of them that (despite everyone’s insistence to the contrary) does NOT get silently reset during updates. But you’ll see everyone talking about the ads like they’re completely unavoidable and re-enable themselves if you press spacebar too hard.
Linux is awesome, 99% of the issues to work around in Windows simply shouldn’t exist in the first place, and don’t there.
But it’s still far from a smooth experience for non-technical users.
That said, for people who don’t want to learn how something works and just want it to work, there’s a compelling argument that copying and pasting random terminal lines off the internet is faster than trying to follow instructions guiding you through an unfamiliar UI. It’s more opaque as what it’s doing, and a lot easier to just fuck your install, but it can appear like less work in the short term.
For people open to learn though, I maintain that truly learning how to manage your linux distro install (instead of just being a copy paste warrior) is about as difficult as learning how to manage a Windows install properly.
Well, isn’t their whole sales pitch essentially that windows is super easy, everything has a GUI and you don’t have to use the sCaRy TerMiNal? If you then have to change some cryptic registry entries to disable behavior that shouldn’t be enabled in the first place, the argument for using it just collapses. It shouldn’t be hard to uninstall the default browser, but somehow microsoft manages to make it hard
If you use it like a regular user, it is easy.
- Regular users just create a Microsoft Account and don’t bitch on how to circumvent that to force a local account instead. To them it doesn’t matter how hard it is, because they don’t use it.
- Regular users see suggestions in the start menu and either right click to uninstall or they let them be and aren’t bothered. Their start menu already is a mess of accidentally added apps.
- Regular users don’t even know OneDrive is enabled and automatically running, but they are damn glad it exists when their drive fails and don’t lose all their files.
- Regular users will never use command line in their life, if they can’t find it easily in the settings, they will just say “that is life” and work around their problem.
- Regular users will not update their OS on their own. When updates weren’t forced, you had tons of vulnerable machines that encountered all sorts of problems. So automating that makes it easier for them.
- Regular users will not do anything obscure with their computer that requires the registry. If it doesn’t do something they want, rather than trying to fix it, they will work around it. Even if that means going back to pen and paper. We know a computer can do it, but they don’t.
To us tech people, we demand the computer to behave how we want. But a regular user does not. To them it is a Swiss army knife of which they only use the bottle opener.
It is super easy, if you stick within the boundaries of the absolute most basic use cases. If you’re a normal user, which is what Linux evangelists insist Linux is ready for despite persistent edge cases with hardware support.
If you think ripping out the default web browser (which is used behind the scenes as a system component for a ton of OS level shit) is a “normal user” action, then you’re already operating outside of their target demographic and well into the “you can figure it out yourself bucko” realm.
Even installing a different browser beside Edge is farther than 90% of users will ever consider going.
It’s very easy from a position of tech knowledge to assume that the average user is a hell of a lot more saavy than they are. Go spend some time working IT support and you’ll be violently stripped of that notion. Fucking professional coders, good coders, that can’t navigate basic settings menus. Who don’t use adblocking plugins. It’s crazy.
But anyway, replacing the browser (and still leaving Edge installed) is as simple as installing your browser of choice, then going to Default Apps and switching it off Edge to what you want to use. Yes, it gives you a completely un-needed “are you sure” prompt. No, I’ve never had it reset that setting on me after an update.
The only default app setting I’ve had issues with is Edge taking over as default PDF reader after some updates, and that stopped happening well over a year ago.
This is the type of shit I’m talking about. Yes, it’s some dumb as shit OS design to so tightly couple the web browser into the rest of the OS.
But the “gotcha” from Linux users is “Well if Windows is meant to be so easy to use for normal people, why can’t I rip out a critical OS component easily?”
Because it’s a critical OS compenent you dolt.
You aren’t asking about using Firefox here, you’re asking about something akin to changing the BT stack handler, the TCP/IP stack, or the CPU scheduler. All things you can do on Linux, but not normal end user shit.
Well, anything is easy if you stay within the boundaries of the OS as it is shipped. For arch, that means no desktop environment at all, just the TTY – which is super easy to use if that happens to be exactly your use case. IMO a reasonable test is not whether is it easy to use if you stay within the boundaries (as that is true for everything), but whether those boundaries are reasonable.
I completely agree that ripping out system components does not have to be easy. But not wanting Cortana, OneDrive, Edge or other microsoft programs to be preinstalled, hard to remove, and constantly nagging you to use them over other programs is not an unreasonable request. Last time I installed Windows for a friend, you needed a workaround to be able to use the computer without a user account tied to some microsoft account. And that triggered the same response in me as in the meme – this is not some cloud service where I make an account and they provide the hardware. I want to use the computer that is sitting in front of me, in my house. Why should I need a microsoft account for that?
Ok, but now we’re changing the context, and we’re back to my original point: Making Windows work for you is possible, and roughly as hard as making the switch to Linux.
But complaining that power-user functioanlity isn’t easy is just… asinine. If you understand the underlying design, it becomes awfully obvious that Microsoft is far more lazy than malicious. Same end result, but it helps make the entire process of using and configuring Windows make a lot more sense.
Yeah, Linux is obviously the better choice long term. But “fixing” Windows isn’t impossible, and switiching to Linux isn’t a “it just works” experience. Simple shit like HDR support still isn’t as plug and play as it “should” be.
So seeing people wrongly claim that doing certain things with Windows is literally impossible while they talk about dealing with similarly complex shit in Linux is frustrating. If you can do X in Linux, you are more than capable of doing Y in Windows.
You’re not wrong. It shouldn’t be necessary to tell Microsoft to fuck off at all. It’s not an unreasonable desire to want Microsoft to fuck off with their anti-consumer bullshit.
All I’m saying is that the skills needed to make Windows work for you are roughly equivalent in difficulty to getting Linux to work for you.
Both take work, and knowledge about the underlying design to do properly. The asinine “hot takes” from both sides are largely fuelled by people spouting off without the background knowledge to understand why things are designed how they are.
It’s definitely possible to make windows suck less. But no matter how proficient you are with windows, I don’t think it is possible to recreate the look-and-feel of Linux. Fundamentally, it is just not a modular system where you can switch out e.g. the bootloader, filesystems or the desktop environment. And even if you tried to, there is no source code, no mailing list, no comprehensive wiki, no Github issues where people already figured out the exact problem you’re facing, and it feels like the OS is fighting you every step of the way.
So what I’m saying is this: If you have very low knowledge about computers, windows kind-of works, but many things feel out of your control and you learn to hate your computer rather than like it (why does it want me to create an account, why does it update without me telling it to, why is all this crap preinstalled etc.). And even if you were to learn more about the inner workings of windows, it’s way less accessible due to its closed source and you still don’t get the same customizability that Linux would give you.
People certainly enjoy to learn how things work, even on the console. They don’t enjoy working around rocks a hostile OS throws in their way to line Microshit’s pockets. Because it is a lost battle, knowing your workaround will only work for so long until Microsoft will find a better way to sabotage you on your own computer. You need to be completely insane to enjoy this shitl. And a complete asshole to comment based on assumptions and allegations like this in an arrogant tone that tries to hide the hollow incompetence that’s behind it.
complete asshole to comment based on assumptions and allegations like this in an arrogant tone that tries to hide the hollow incompetence that’s behind it.
Go fuck yourself. You don’t know me, and if you cared more than trying to make a cheap shot at someone for daring to call Windows passable you would see that scattered through my posting history there’s more than enough evidence that I know what the fuck I speak of.
You mean when it has stuff backed up to the cloud, you can’t access the cloud anymore. Would be weird if you still could, wouldn’t it?
Name one other cloud backup system that allows this.
OneDrive is a big part of why I finally made the switch.
For me, it’s going to be the AI injected into the body without consent.
Microsoft recently charged my workplace the same price for a standalone licence for the old Office that has no AI, that it charges for the new AI infested one.
For me it was Windows 7
Then they came out with Metro Ui so I went back
Then they got rid of it so I went back to Linux
In the 90s I didn’t really have a main one
Your phone is still monitored by cloud storage, why not switch your phone to Linux then? Oh yeah, icloud and gdrive good, onedrive bad. Dur.
icloud and gdrive aren’t in my face every day. They’re unobtrusive. Not in any way better, Just less annoying.
I don’t use any of those. Probably the only real cloud-like thing I have or still allow for some reason is an old Gmail, and that I limit use of.
I just turned off and uninstalled One Drive when I got Windows 11 and have had zero issues
I just turned off and uninstalled windows when I got Windows 8 and have had zero issues.
You never have issues with OneDrive unless you accidentally forget to remove it. People lose files because of this shit.
How do people lose files by having them backed up and version controlled in the cloud exactly?
I have no idea, ask Microsoft employees.
They don’t, was the point I’m making.
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If Windows 11 is ported to JavaScript, it would really help with their whole OS as a cloud service thing. I’ll enjoy watching that. From a distance.
Am I the only person in the world that managed to delete the shit off of windows that I didn’t want and never have it come back?
Even after updates?
No, the rest of us just stopped responding to these threads. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it think.
The kinds of people who repost this meme over and over again, are the kinds of people who don’t do updates, and the reason why updates are automatic by default on Windows. They don’t know nor care to know what is going on with their os, they just have an idea of what they expect will happen, and when something different happens, they complain and post memes about it.
Of course, not every single person is like that, there are and always will be exceptions
The hard truth is that most people don’t know and don’t care what’s running on their computer until it gets in their way.
Some of us have to do tech support for people stuck in these situations. I don’t personally have problems with Onedrive but I’m also the type who is able to figure out installing Windows without a Microsoft account.
Yeah. Needing to install using an MS account is a massively consumer hostile practice.
I see it as Microsoft saying: “this is what’s best for you, you’ll do things this way” and giving you absolutely no way to bypass it (unless you’re like me or you… And know the tricks to do so).
“Safe from pain, and truth, and choice, and other poison devils” …
This is such a pile of cheap elitism. So, the very need to figure out how to remove what you didn’t ask for does not bother your club of computer geniuses?
I will point out that’s not what the OP is about.
It’s literally complaining for the sake of complaining.
Yeah. Sure. OneDrive suddenly starting to do devious shit without any request of user confirmation or warning definitely did not happen to anybody, it is just miserable unqualified people trying to feel good about themselves by complaining about nonexistent issues
You know what? That “rest of you” does a good thing by having “stopped responding to these threads”. Do keep this noble tradition
Sure thing boss. Can I also spit shine your shoes while I’m down on my knees taking your orders?
No, the above is enough. Thank you
No, same thing here.
Lots of people removed Windows without it coming back
I thought everyone turned it off after setting up windows
I sure did once I finally realized what was going on. It was a pain in the ass to do but I was able to do it. Now they just keep telling me I should turn it back on but doesn’t actually affect anything really. They’re just all “oh man you really should back up all your stuff! It’s a risk if you don’t! You should definitely do so with OneDrive!”
Apparently a lot of people find it so difficult to do that there are narratives that it is impossible.
Why? Do you turn off your icloud/gdrive storage on your phone?
Yes. I don’t use cloud storage other than email.
I don’t have a need for it really. Even on my phone I rarely use it.
Yes
Might be easier to print everything out and buy a filling cabinet
As long as I keep my printer ink subscription current, this works great.
I just inject… feels good man!
Windows has always failed to include a libre software license text file. We have never controlled it, anti-libre software.
Windows is the virus
