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Cloud IT

Microsoft Won't Let You Close OneDrive on Windows Until You Explain Yourself (theverge.com) 245

Microsoft now wants you to explain exactly why you're attempting to close its OneDrive for Windows app before it allows you to do so. From a report: Neowin has spotted that the latest update to OneDrive now includes an annoying dialog box that asks you to select the reason why you're closing the app every single time you attempt to close OneDrive from the taskbar. Closing OneDrive is already buried away and not a simple task, with Microsoft hiding it under a "pause syncing" option when you right-click on OneDrive in the taskbar. But now, the quit option is grayed out until you select a reason for quitting OneDrive from a drop-down box. Here are the options:
1. I don't want OneDrive running all the time
2. I don't know what OneDrive is
3. I don't use OneDrive
4. I'm trying to fix a problem with OneDrive
5. I'm trying to speed up my computer
6. I get too many notifications
7. Other

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Microsoft Won't Let You Close OneDrive on Windows Until You Explain Yourself

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  • Other (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BigZee ( 769371 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:32AM (#63992999)
    Why would anyone chose to provide MS with useful information in this case. Other is going to be the most common reason.
    • by HBI ( 10338492 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:41AM (#63993027)

      Onedrive has hit about peak penetration. It's a not that great service included in O365 that drives a lot of MSFT Azure revenue. Same as Edge, they want to figure out why people are deleting it or otherwise getting rid of it. The product group would like to stop the bleeding. I predict little success.

      The same situation is playing out for Teams. Zoom and Discord are the main issues for further penetration, and nothing in the MSFT offering is going to do much to unseat them.

      • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:06AM (#63993105) Homepage Journal
        Ok..I'm going with one of the questions they ask.

        What IS OneDrive?

        Not familiar with it.

        • by Ksevio ( 865461 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:11AM (#63993133) Homepage

          It's like dropbox - it syncs your files across machines via the cloud.

          Lots of issues with synchronization and file access since it pretends to be real files but they don't actually exist

          • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:30AM (#63993215)
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Whatâ(TM)s the issue with iCloud Drive? I donâ(TM)t have much experience with it, but coincidentally, I turned it on a week ago for the first time on a Windows 7 machine to copy some files to all my Macs. It worked, but this is hardly much experience. My biggest issue with it is that Appleâ(TM)s iCloud storage costs get expensive very quickly.

              I do use OneDrive at work on my Mac, but thatâ(TM)s because it comes with our Office accounts and it includes so much space. I donâ(TM)t f

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                • by Malc ( 1751 )

                  Interesting. I can see from your description how iCloud Drive is more a consumer product and not so suitable to many businesses. And thanks for your pointer to the info about the default settings for shareable links. I can't fathom our IT, they're intrusive and heavy handed with their security that at times it's difficult for people to work. Maybe you're right and they don't want to deal with a lot of senior non-technical people who will have to change how they work

            • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

              The issues I've seen are that while it's sync-ing files locally with the cloud then you can't move/rename them which is pretty annoying, but the worse one is if you have files stored on the cloud and view them on one drive on a machine, you click them, it downloads the file and opens - no problem. If a program wants to access the files, it can check if the file exists, Windows says "sure does!" but then you go to access it and you get strange access errors. Users get confused, then check the file, it's fi

            • by HBI ( 10338492 )

              Admittedly, in my world the O365 implementation was broken on purpose because of IA (read: cybersecurity).

              That said, the only real advantage of Onedrive is that we don't have to do workstation backups, Onedrive takes care of all the individual files saved on people's systems. Otherwise, we'd have to reach out to systems to save off user directories, or implement (yuck) roaming profiles or whatever.

              As for the rest, it's a net negative, but that was a big deal at the time. One joy is interesting file lockin

          • Lots of issues with synchronization and file access since it pretends to be real files but they don't actually exist

            The files ARE real, sure you can "save space" and have them "on demand on this device" but I don't think that's the default configuration. This is certainly NOT like Google's Drive File Stream (it's called something else nowadays, if it exists at all), that would indeed just make a fully virtual drive (FAT32 or similar, no less!) and many apps will crap out because of various interactions with

          • It's like Dropbox, but worse. It tries to integrate tightly into the file explorer as well. The defaults it uses are silly; it will _delete_ your local files if they see that they're backed up. Like its broken backup methods, it assumes everything in Libraries is important, and everything else is not. You may find that suddenly tons of shit is being backed up, which could affect our ISP bandwidth and charges if you're working from home or have unexpected slowdowns without being told why if in the office.

      • Microsoft doesn't understand that the most common reason for any of their products to be turned off is "it sucks". Microsoft writes cappy software, plain and simple. Then step one they force it as a default in Windows to try to get it accepted by the public without the burden of competing against rivals with better solutions. Step two is making it very annoying to remove, turn off, or replace.

        For home users they assume most people just click "yes" by default, and treat them as too stupid to manage their o

      • It's a not that great service

        I'm curious what you would consider a "great" service. What is OneDrive missing or doing wrong? What other product would you recommend?

        Personally, I used to back up my files onto Zip drives, then CD-ROMs, then DVD-ROMS. It was such a pain. As a result, I only backed up every few weeks, leaving myself vulnerable to loss.

        With OneDrive, everything I do is backed up pretty much immediately. I can retrieve old versions of a file that has been modified multiple times. And best of all, I don't have to mess with it

    • Or just choose one reason at random, who cares.

    • Re:Other (Score:5, Interesting)

      by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @12:06PM (#63993333)

      Wrong way to think about it. Data poisoning is the proper approach. Click a selection at random and hit submit. Every time someone does that it decreases the signal to noise ratio in their data

    • Well...maybe because I want to try to influence the priority and direction of future development of the product?

  • by MIPSPro ( 10156657 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:34AM (#63993007)
    ... and dyndns. Problem solved, no recurring fees needed.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Hawks ( 102993 )

        Synology NAS boxen can be set up in a HA pair. It isn't even horribly hard. A beefy UPS sounds like another need. We have one setup to maintain the servers, network gear, and phones for about 45min. Internet loss is still a thing though.

      • It also misses a bunch of value propositions for the "Modern Work" experience for an enterprise. Laptop XYZ is lost or dies. Oh no. In Intune, click the button to wipe the old one and drop ship them a new machine. They sign into autopilot, magic happens, your security tools are there (Intune), their desktop and documents folders are on the machine (Onedrive), their email is there (M365), and their bookmarks and saved passwords are there (Edge Sync).

        It's a pretty neat trick. I was skeptical, but it's all r

    • Well, several reasons.

      - Backing up to your own hardware is usually a pain.
      - It's not easy to automate backups to your own hardware. Oh yeah, I know that all the backup devices have automated software. But they're clunky and hard to set up, and fail to successfully complete backups on schedule a shockingly large percentage of the time.
      - If you have a fire, and you don't have an offsite backup, you're probably screwed.
      - Backup hardware has to be replaced way too often.
      - Nobody's systems are compatible with an

  • Anonymous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hunter44102 ( 890157 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:34AM (#63993009)
    "I don't use storage tied to an email address"
    • My OneDrive storage is not tied to my email address. They got an email address specifically created just for OneDrive, and no other purpose.

  • by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:35AM (#63993011)

    "Because somebody from Microsoft can take a long, wet suck on my OneDrive" isn't among the options. Why would anybody want to choose another?

  • by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:36AM (#63993013)

    It's no wonder OSX is growing so much. Microsoft is giving em quite a push.

    • by MIPSPro ( 10156657 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:45AM (#63993045)
      I know it's death by a thousand cuts, but after seeing ads in the start menu, I'm like "I'm never touching windows again" (not that I was ever a fan). Who is sticking around after shit like that? Only the douchebag salespeople use M$ in our office.
      • by Z80a ( 971949 )

        I imagine this is a turn off for normal people that don't know computers as well.
        They look at "machine A" and "machine B" and machine B has no advertising and mcafee pop ups etc and end up choosing it.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by jmccue ( 834797 )

          They look at "machine A" and "machine B" and machine B has no advertising and mcafee pop ups etc and end up choosing it.

          If only this was the case, we would not have Secure Boot, Intel ME, TPM2 Requirement, the upcoming M/S Pluton Chip. and spyware everywhere. The only people who would do what you suggested are people here. Most non-tech people only look for cheap, that is it.

      • I keep hearing about ads in the start menu but I've yet to see them and I've been using Windows 11 since launch.
    • by jmccue ( 834797 )

      I fully agree with this, recently a relative needed to get an new laptop to replace his 10Y old Thinkpad. He did not want to run Linux or a similar OS.

      I said do not get one with Windows 11, avoid that at all costs. So he picked up a MAC Laptop and is quite happy with it. I could have put a Linux on it (T430), but he would never use it.

      FWIW, I put my request for the T430 if he decided he does not want it. :)

      • I have a T430 dual booting between Linux and Win 7. Excellent daily driver to this day. Pro tip: get the extra battery to put in the CD-ROM drive bay.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Comboman ( 895500 )

      Why trade one walled garden for another? Switch to Linux.

      • Well, he's not talking about himself. He's just stating that macOS keeps growing because people out there are switching from Windows to it. And the reason people are switching to macOS and not to Linux is because most people don't know what Linux. Do you want people to be aware of Linux and its possibilities? Well, somebody will have to spend a few hundreds of millions (if not thousands) in marketing.

        • I switched to MacOS for my primary computing in part because Apple Silicon is pretty damned impressive performance wise, and, without any virtualization, I can go straight to a *nix command line. Sure, it's BSD flavor, but I've been around long enough I can switch between GNU toolchain and BSD without too much difficulty. I have a laptop running Linux that's my back up and travel machine, and again, there's the *nix command line. Works like a hot damn, and if that laptop gets crunched by the luggage handler

      • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:36AM (#63993239) Journal

        Ugh.... I know it's Slashdot where Linux reigns supreme. But as a LONG time Linux user myself? It's just not viable for the average computer user as a workstation. It's viable for the limited/restricted usage you give students with Chromebooks, and it's viable once properly/carefully configured for the casual user where you know the scope of what they want to use. And obviously, it's a great option for "power users" who will spend the time learning the OS.

        The "average user" doesn't care so much about walled gardens. He/she cares about things like being able to install their favorite software applications and to have a user experience where things aren't too cluttered with options OR where options they need are difficult to find.

        A Mac already doesn't work for some of these people because their chosen apps have no native Mac editions. But at least on the Mac, you can get commercial products like AutoCAD if you need them, and pretty much everything Adobe makes has a Mac version. Since it's a BSD Unix at its core, it also has easy to install editions of most of the stuff the Linux community considers its "major apps" too. The OS itself gives you tools like ability to do basic annotation and editing on PDFs and you can generate one from anywhere. And if you need support? You have local retail stores in many major cities where you can schedule appointments to go in and get assistance or basic training on how to use it. Plus, it's not perfect by any means ... but even Microsoft's Mac editions of apps tend to be a little cleaner and less annoying than their Windows counterparts because they're still following old Mac conventions for app design, and/or don't care so much about collecting data from a relatively small percentage of Mac users out there.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @12:02PM (#63993321)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • It's just not viable for the average computer user as a workstation.

          It's not? I'd hate to see what kind of "average computer user" you're thinking of, because my experience has been completely different.
          My older sister is a very typical user, who doesn't understand anything about how computers work and likes it that way. Over a decade ago, she got her hands on a LiveUSB for Ubuntu, and after only five minutes was ready to switch. Ever since, she's been a happy Linux user, and the only time she's need
  • by Larry_Dillon ( 20347 ) <dillon.larry@gmailTWAIN.com minus author> on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:38AM (#63993019) Homepage

    If you have many local accounts, like on lab computers where we can have over 100 accounts, the OneDrive bloatware ends up consuming a significant amount of disk space, and impacts startup times, even when zero people use it. Bloatware is killing Windows.

  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:40AM (#63993023) Homepage Journal

    But honestly the only one that matters is "My using OneDrive would violate federal, state, and local law and also result in my termination" because tax information, HIPAA, etc. Fuck off Microsoft, stop trying to set me up for blackmail.

    I actually don't know how anyone can justify using Windows for business when it's the worst spyware of all time. How is even allowing confidential and protected data to pass through a system with Telemetry legal? We're talking about data that has to be protected by at least two mechanisms and it's going across a system that the EULA says Microsoft can pick up any data from at any time and for any purpose and then go on to hand it to their associates?

    • by presearch ( 214913 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:01AM (#63993073)

      The Big Bank that Mrs. works for has been closing its data centers and moving everything to Azure.
      Everything. And of course, they're all communicating using Teams, mirroring what Biggest Bank does.
      All Microsoft, everywhere.

      And now, they want to "pair" all of their developers with a new programming buddy, Visual AI.
      Seriously. But most engineering is being moved to India anyway, so lucky for them.

      I'm sure it's coincidental that Big Bank's CEO sits on Microsoft's board.

      • The Big Bank that Mrs. works for has been closing its data centers and moving everything to Azure.

        My condolences.

        Can you give a hint as to which bank? I might wanna withdraw my funds and move to somewhere a bit more secure....

      • by PPH ( 736903 )

        The Big Bank that Mrs. works for has been closing its data centers and moving everything to Azure.

        Why does that sound like a tax haven? Like Belize.

    • by leonbev ( 111395 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:12AM (#63993139) Journal

      They also don't have the "your service keeps backing up useless temporary files that drives me over the 5 GB storage limit" option. I would need that option from my personal experience with the product.

      Yes, I know that you can configure it to exclude certain directories. That said, I never asked for them to back this stuff up to begin with, so all it's really doing is wasting my network bandwidth and CPU resources to back up trash to the cloud.

  • Number Eight (Score:5, Informative)

    by crunchygranola ( 1954152 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @10:42AM (#63993033)

    1. I don't want OneDrive running all the time 2. I don't know what OneDrive is 3. I don't use OneDrive 4. I'm trying to fix a problem with OneDrive 5. I'm trying to speed up my computer 6. I get too many notifications 7. Other

    8. I get too many useless modal dialogues requiring user action before anything happens

  • Just what do you think you're doing?
    I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in eavesdropping on you and scooping up all your data.

  • I don't see this behaviour
    Windows 10 Enterprise 21H2 LTS build 19044.3570

  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:00AM (#63993071)
    So does Adobe and Oracle. But Linux users are too busy debating the xorg vs wayland flamewar which is just a rehash of the old xfree86 flamewar to create a true alternative. Been waiting for "the year" since 2001.
    • I thought the fight was between SysInit and SystemD?
      • The fight between a sane init system vs. systemd is pretty much over. The wrong side won. Which sucks for a lot of reasons. I can avoid it for now by using Gentoo, in which systemd is mostly optional. But not for much longer, due to the following.

        Xorg vs. Wayland is different. Xorg is clearly legacy technology that will never gain much more development or mindshare. But Wayland remains fragmented, and the only compositors that are close to being fully featured require one to run GNOME (and hence syste

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I mean, #1, #2 and #3 directly apply to me, and #5 and #6 are also of interest.

  • Toxic relationship (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:05AM (#63993097) Homepage Journal

    Several Microsoft applications have a toxic relationship with its users. We live in a world where the software uses you instead of the other way around.

  • ...people would choose to use it, voluntarily
    I find it useful, and am using it on a limited basis, but am always a bit suspicious of stuff that's forced on me

  • isn't one of the option?

  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:24AM (#63993181) Journal

    I'm getting really tired of garbage like our corporate MS Teams users constantly getting prompted with what feels like marketing nonsense, suggesting they "Try the NEW Teams". Once they switch to it, it prompts them at every login about whether they want to keep using the new Teams or to switch back.

    They do the same, only slightly more subtly, with Outlook and the "Try the new Outlook" switch they leave present in the top right-hand corner. If users think, "Oh, good... a new, improved Outlook!" and select it? They're thrown into what's basically the Windows Mail app on steroids, where it wastes drive space syncing a second copy of all their mail and calendar entries from Exchange.

    And now OneDrive asking them to take a survey on exit, too? None of this feels like a business/Enterprise experience whatsoever. And that's BEFORE all the complaints about core functionality issues. (Just yesterday, our CEO held a big Teams video-conference with one of our company's partners and nobody was able to screen share in it. It would let them click to do it and act like it was working ... but nobody could actually see any shared screens. Permissions for the meeting were set for "Everyone" to be able to do it. They had to end the call and send a new invite and try a second time to get it to work right.)

    • They're thrown into what's basically the Windows Mail app on steroids,

      There are no steroids. It is just the web app. Nothing I could find different between them.
      It doesn't help that it also looks and feels like someone followed some instructions on setting up their very first web mail client and did a shit job of following the instructions.

    • The new Teams app was great for productivity since it didn't bother to notify you of any meetings or messages.

      Why they would publicly release such a broken app is a mystery. Maybe you're right about them having their users do beta testing for them.

      • Mine worked quite well, actually, for about a week. Then it broke. It would occasionally show a message at the top that said it had problems connecting to the service, but as i recall, the bar was green and very low contrast (so i did not have noticed it initially). Chats that i had not previously switched to would not load, just a blank area with the text entry box. Chats I had loaded would load, but could not backscroll - worse, on these, you could 'send' messages that gave no indication of their failure
  • by Gonoff ( 88518 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:28AM (#63993207)

    If I am pushed excessive undesirable advertising, those products go on my "perhaps I will avoid these things" mental list.

    There are a number of things that I will not buy because they have offended me in some trivial way. This just adds to that list.

  • From a "run as administrator" command window:

    taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exe

  • After denying numerous iTunes / phone app updates on Windows the icon went from "quit to "quitter" over time.
    So now it just says "Quitter"

  • End process

    Does abruptly killing the process and not answering Microsoft's stupid poll a valid choice? Kind of like not voting is also a political message.

  • I'd love a multi-select, please.

    • Note how "I don't trust Microsoft to have a copy of my data on their servers, now fuck off and let me close this data exfiltration software" isn't an option.

      They don't want the reason, they want to wear you down until you accept what they want.

  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @11:49AM (#63993285) Homepage
    I know it's hard to understand, but if Microsoft is asking why you don't want to use something and all the answers are randomly chosen or basically 'fuck you'; well you get what you deserve. More junk you don't want.
  • taskkill /IM onedrive.exe

  • by johnnys ( 592333 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @12:18PM (#63993387)

    If you absolutely need to use Windows for work then I can understand, but with the recent improvements on Linux for gaming it really doesn't make sense anymore to continue to endure the "Windows user abuse" for any sort of personal use.

    If you are (a) using Windows just for personal use with gaming, browsing, email or other tasks that Linux does perfectly well, and (b) you're complaining about the violation of your privacy and the abuse of your systems and information by Microsoft, then you need to STOP wasting your energy on complaining and redirect that energy to learning Linux.

    The cure for the greedy, dangerous and privacy-destroying and ongoing abuse of Windows users, is to STOP using Windows and move to a platform that respects your rights. Nothing else will solve that problem.

    • last i tried linux for gaming was circa 2018; and even then it was like 85% of the way there; though that last mile 15% was a dealbreaker. For the games in my library there was always some quirk, some random god damn behavior that just ruined the experience. Be it sound randomly cutting out of a channel, or some arcane config file that needs to be babysat, or what have you -- it was just shy of being a replacement.

      for now 10 is tolerable (but barely) I'm guessing (praying?) by the time it finally gets forc

  • Just today i changed my keepass password database from onedrive to dropbox cause the android versión was not updating it. No point to use if fails at the primary function. And dropbox its not reliable either, but i just wanted to get my dang passwords :D

    I tink i need to move to other solution who just syncs fast over PC and Android.

    Its https://syncthing.net/ [syncthing.net] good enough ?

  • How about everyone select "Other", then fill in the following:

    "Satya Nadella's penis is too flaccid".

  • It sits in the tray and does nothing
    If the minuscule amount of RAM it occupies is a problem, then you have bigger problems.

    I have tried to find the task that starts it, but haven't yet.
  • And proud of it.

    Yes, the pun was intentional.

  • One day I noticed all of my user directory was mirrored online effectively exposing most of my desktop and documents to online review by unknown 3rd parties
  • I have a Pixel and backup my photos/files to a NAS. Android doesn't seem to have a option to stop suggesting I backup to Google. Periodic prompts and, after saying 'no' again, sometimes the photos app asks "how about just these couple pictures"?

  • by TractorBarry ( 788340 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @01:25PM (#63993577) Homepage

    I've been using Windows computers at home since the WIn98 days. The prime reason is to run audio/video software. Over the years I've upgraded to newer versions of Windows to take advantage of increased memory (you can never have too much memory for audio/video work) but along the way learned a very valauble lesson. Don't use any MS software other than the OS itself. They always try to lock your data in etc. etc. Over the years the "non audio" software I use grew to things like VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox, Foobar, GIMP, Sony VEGAS, plus all sorts of useful little utilities and also quite a lot of programs I wrote myself in VB, then latterly C#, Python etc.

    When Windows 10 came out I bought the LTSC version as this was the only one that I was prepared to use - no forced MS account, no forced crapware installs etc.

    All the latest moves Microsoft are making is to turn Widows into some sort of "dumb as a rock", "Fisher Price" style activity centre/appliance for idiots. Forced MS account, foced installation of crap you don't want, regualr deletion of user preferences, costant pop ups, etc. etc. etc. I sometimes help out friends with Windows 10 home installations and I honestly don't know how they can stand all the interruptions/crap.

    My solution has been simple. Ove the last few years I've moved pretty much everything non audio/video related over to a Linux desktop as VLC, Thunderbird, Firefox, GIMP etc. all run pretty much the same on Linux.

    Having looked at the utter bullshot MS are putting into WIndows 11 there is no way in hell I'm ever going to "upgrade" (sic) from 10 LTSC. So I'll now be keeping my WIn10 box going until either it, or I, die .

    It seems like the MS management have forgotten the whole conept of a "personal computer". It's for *ME* to do what *I* want. I don't work for you, you have no idea what I want to do with my PC so stop trying to force shit on your users.

    Persnally I think they#ve got some trolls workig in the upepr management who are literally hell bent on working out "how can we get rid of our user base ?"

  • Just Microsoft being Microsoft. If your playing in someone else's walled garden why would they care what you think.
  • by bdh ( 96224 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @01:55PM (#63993651)
    A few years ago, I had a customer freaking out because her hard disk was dying, and she couldn't do a backup. She had a Windows 10 PC with a 2TB disk, and had bought a 4TB external WD disk to back up her dying internal machine. But every time she tried to copy files, she got a Windows error saying the disk was full. The 4TB disk was properly formatted, had only 200MB of files on it, and showed 3.98TB free space, but Windows refused to copy files to it because it was "full".

    As you can imagine, she was frantic, as irreplaceable data was at risk. I was called in to debug the issue, and sure enough, copies to the 4TB disk didn't work. I hooked it up to my laptop, and it was fine. Why could my PC copy files to it, but hers couldn't?

    Because of OneDrive.

    The error message was a OneDrive error. But she wasn't copying to OneDrive in the first place. Or was she?

    It appears that when you copy files using Windows Explorer using drag and drop to another Windows Explorer, OneDrive quietly intercepts the copy, and also copies the files to OneDrive, for backup.

    She was doing drag and drop between two Explorer windows. And her OneDrive was completely full, and out of space, so it couldn't take any more files. So Windows aborted the copy with any error.

    Yes, because OneDrive was full, Windows prevented copying to a local hard drive.

    The customer didn't even know what OneDrive was. Exiting it, and stopping it from starting up again, she was able to back up her system, but she was totally freaked out about the OneDrive "virus" that almost caused her catastrophic data loss.

    And when she found out what OneDrive was, and realized that confidential, proprietary data from her customers was now on Microsoft servers, she freaked out yet again.

    My only question is, why isn't there a "because it causes data loss" option in the list of reasons people want to exit it?

  • Task Manager -> End Task

    Maybe that will shut the up.

  • by mhocker ( 607466 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @04:08PM (#63994081)

    I'm an unfortunate Mac user of OneDrive on Mac. It has a very irritating issue that whenever it updates itself (which it does silently) it somehow removes itself from the login items list. Which means on the next reboot it's not running - a situation you don't notice until you realize that your files aren't being backed up.

    So you re-add it to the login items, make sure it's running and once again forget about it. Which sets it up to remove itself from the login items list again. Rinse and repeat.

    Awful product. And I hate it even more because you can't turn on Autosave in Office without saving to one of its folders.

  • by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Thursday November 09, 2023 @06:38PM (#63994419) Journal

    I am on Windows 11 23H2. There is a box in my Settings app "home" page that says this:

    Note that the message has a little OneDrive cloud icon above it. They're literally reporting that there's something wrong with my computer. Cloud storage is not working!

    In truth, Dropbox is fine. Google Drive is fine. My cloud storage is fine.

    In addition, Office won't enable "autosave" with any other cloud service. It could automatically save the document to whatever syncing cloud directory I want, it just won't.

    Yeah. DOJ needs to break off OS and software from Azure and cloud services at MS. Probably break off search too. This is just ridiculous, and regulators need to be proactive and cut them off now. Break this thing up.

Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

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