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Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

answers.microsoft.com

171–180 of 492 posts

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#171

The business that Microsoft alienated in this exchange probably comprised around 3% of the people who were using OneDrive on purpose.

more like .3

What are you talking about? Next year is the year of Linux on the desktop, and here's Microsoft barely even ready.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#173
post #9

Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a company like being brushed off like a bug.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

At least there is an occasional employee commenting. Have you seen the Google support forums?

Google promotes normal users to moderators on their support forums if they just post enough, so instead of being brushed off by some underpaid employee you are being ignored and ridiculed by someone not even being paid to!

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#174
post #6

I have to admit, the whole exchange is pretty funny: > Hello, Onedrive for Business open is very slow on Linux (Chrome/Firefox) but with very fast with a "Windows" user-agent. > Hi DL, As Office 365 for Business services(e.g. SharePoint Online, including OneDrive for Business, Exchange Online) are not supported on Linux as shown below, for the best experience, we recommend the operating system listed in the article.…

It keeps growing > 36 people found this helpful Also: > Solved my problem (12)

I went to vote for this, just for the fun of it, but got asked to login. Then it asked me to setup my username, and then complained that my 3 usual variants were already taken. I guess I have another account that's already sitting on that username. But who knows? Microsoft's multi-user login support is a disaster.

One of my accounts is corporate, and my browsers -- ALL of them on ALL OS's -- are constantly confused. Sometimes when I need to switch, it looks like my browser flips through about 4 or 5 pages, and then makes me manually refresh to get a prompt. How can this be so bad, at this point? Google had multi-user support sorted years ago, including business account logins. I guess it's a problem due to a difference between AD-backed corporate accounts and (I assume) non-AD accounts?

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#175

my 1$ hypothesis - partner company to which Onedrive UI project outsourced didn't had any Linux machine and all developers/QA working for this partner company were Windows users, to improve compatibility matrix they had kept few Mac machines in the office to run tests. Moreover this team might not received proper spec about the backend API at the initial stages of the project development, would have receive only at l…

I am pretty sure that they don't outsource development of such important functionality.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#176
post #9

Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a company like being brushed off like a bug.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

> I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

At least not from a Microsoft employee. Sadly, the majority of posts from Microsoft employees I have seen basically repeat the problem description, followed by "Did I understand that correctly?", sometimes people get generic advice like reboot their computer, make sure their system has all available updates installed, etc.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an enormous feeling of dread. I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

As a linux user since the 90s, googling for basic issues on Windows is an unmitigated disaster. For linux I have always got a correct answer.

Bullshit If you were a Linux user in the mid-90's, then about the only place to get "help" was #linux on EFnet. Collectively, I don't think I've suffered more abuse on the internet than in that forum. And, yes, I'm still bitter. It was NOT a noob-friendly place. The best place -- ever -- to get Linux help was, and will always have been, the Gentoo forums, but that didn't take off till the early 2000's.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#178
post #169
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just MS up to its old (classic) tricks.

Doesn't Hangouts only work properly on Chrome?

There is a plugin for IE and safari. Some versions of Firefox work. The important issue is that chrome and Firefox are browsers that work on the big three platforms.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I would hesitate to say it's intentional is Microsoft's relationship/experience with the DOJ. Maybe that's far enough in the past and the landscape has changed sufficiently that it's no longer a matter of concern for them. If the only change necessary to improve speed is to update a string in the UA, I would say that's pretty hard to do accidentally. In theory, it could be an artifact of some internal…

I highly doubt that someone on OneDrive has KPIs that performance on Windows is X better than performance on another OS. Maybe if both teams were in the same org, then I could see that as a (n albeit very slight) possibility. Not knowing the code behind it, but knowing the history of the OneDrive for Business client, I could see a few ways this could happen. The OD4B client has gone through a bunch of iterations befo…

While that type of disconnect is certainly plausible, this type of soft communication arbitrage is regularly used to sabotage projects in corporate politics. It allows the conspirators to keep their moves covert. Plausible deniability is key, and affable management personalities go a long way to keeping people believing in the fairy tale.

I'm sure a company like MS, who've had traumatic run-ins with the DOJ in the past, has internalized this phony management persona even more than most. And I do believe low-level developers who work on the individual clients are probably 100% earnest. They usually are. It's the people in the political structure who set their priorities and schedules and use them as pawns that you have to worry about.

Even if your postulation is exactly accurate, MS still bears responsibility for crippling the Linux client, no matter which specific employee the communication "fault" falls on.

I have no inside knowledge of Microsoft, this is just generic commentary and extrapolation on corporate politics in general. It is possible that I'm incorrect and this is truly an honest mistake. If this gets any attention, management will certainly claim that, and we'll never know the reality of whether it was unintentional or whether "The Linux client supports those speedups" was intentionally swallowed by someone along the line (or whether the patch was delayed for additional review because it was "accidentally bundled" with a bigger branch, or whether the priority has just been "innocently" pushed down, or whether the team is "just understaffed", or...).

The proof is in the pudding with corporate politics. Being in management is being a professional politician. That's always true. They're always going to try to tell people what they want to hear and cloud up the picture around things that that person doesn't want to hear. If Microsoft is continually engaging in a series of accidents that hurt non-Windows clients, that pattern is sufficient proof of management's intent, regardless of what they claim.

Re: Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016)

#180
post #169
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just MS up to its old (classic) tricks.

Doesn't Hangouts only work properly on Chrome?

It works fine in every browser, but you might need to download a small plugin if you're not on Chrome due to WebRTC being a standard but not a standard.

Regardless of your browser, it'll heat your system up so you can fry an egg or broil a steak.

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