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Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

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Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#91

Post by djxfade »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #76
cjk2 wrote: post #16

Why the hell aren't the EU and the FTC suing the shit out of them for bundling, telemetry, lock in, gouging, shitty defaults?

Sadly I think the enthusiasm with which the market embraced this behaviour in mobile, console and IoT makes it legally difficult for Microsoft to be punished. How can you penalise Microsoft for pushing OneDrive by default but not penalise Apple for iCloud? Should multiple backup providers be suggested at startup for economic fairness? Or should backups be disabled by default (potentially annoying consumers of mobile…

iCloud Drive, and actually the entire iCloud ecosystem is opt-in

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#92

Post by ziddoap »

okasaki wrote: post #85
ziddoap wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. I'm not the only one in this thread, the other Windows thread from today, or online that has installed Windows 11 Home in the last week and successfully setup local-only accounts. When dozens of people say it still works and one says it doesn't, chances are the one person did it incorrectly. It works.

Here's several people saying it doesn't work any more: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/window... It tried it, it didn't work. I even disabled wifi in bios.

I'm not sure what to tell you. Friday, 3 days ago, I setup a brand new Windows 11 Home computer.

I didn't connect to Wi-Fi, I did OOBE\bypassnro, and I created my local account. Nice and simple. There are other people in this very thread who also had the same experience as me.

Sorry it didn't work for you. But it still works.

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#93

Post by bee_rider »

wtallis wrote: post #6

Microsoft makes it a pain, but you can still jump through some CLI hoops to use only a local user account to log in to Windows, rather than the cloud-conmected Microsoft account they try to funnel you into. Not logging into a Microsoft account prevents OneDrive from doing anything other than spamming you with notifications about how great it would be if you logged in and started using it. And you can still uninstall…

Hacks that require going to into a CLI are just not accessible to non-technical people. Switch to something user friendly like Linux.

At least Gnome only gets screwed up once every decade or so.

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#95

Post by generic92034 »

So what kind of Windows 11 is running on my PC? System info says Win 11 Pro, but I am only using a local account, was never prompted for an MS account, get no ads nowhere, no nag screens for upselling office/OneDrive/etc. What kind of magic did the PC vendor perform for me?

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#96

Post by passwordoops »

bee_rider wrote: post #78
Sayrus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the world runs on Word and Excel and unless you want the even worse Office 365 experience, you often do need some M$.

For now. The kids (incoming college students over the last couple years) like Google’s office suite better as far as I’ve seen. Anyway, real documents are written in LaTeX. Windows lives in this in-between space where it isn’t as easy Google/Apple stuff, but it isn’t as good as Linux. That gap is always closing.

"real documents are written in LaTeX"

Tell me you've never had a job in the real world without telling me you've never had a job in the real world

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#97

Post by okasaki »

ziddoap wrote: post #92
okasaki wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's several people saying it doesn't work any more: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/window... It tried it, it didn't work. I even disabled wifi in bios.

I'm not sure what to tell you. Friday, 3 days ago, I setup a brand new Windows 11 Home computer. I didn't connect to Wi-Fi, I did OOBE\bypassnro, and I created my local account. Nice and simple. There are other people in this very thread who also had the same experience as me. Sorry it didn't work for you. But it still works.

Maybe you used an old image? I downloaded the latest from Microsoft.

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#98

Post by dan-robertson »

whalesalad wrote: post #2

Seems like every 48-72 hours now Microsoft announces yet another extremely compelling reason to abandon their platform for Linux.

Which do you think is the bigger risk to ordinary users?

- someone hacks into Microsoft and accesses their files from onedrive (for passwords/blackmail-info I guess?)

- Microsoft looks at their files in onedrive and does something bad (not sure what)

- someone hacks into their computer and accesses their files. Or someone does so by causing the user to download something bad

- the user’s ssd fails or is corrupted because they have consumer grade hardware that is not treated particularly well, taking all their documents with it.

- the user accidentally deletes some important document (or eg drag-and-drops the contents of their document somewhere else and autosaves the now blank document, or they lose it some other way)

I think the benefits outweigh the risks for a lot of users for this change. I don’t know how onedrive works but one could imagine it working in a reasonably secure way by encrypting data at rest (secure keys on device would be nice but bad UX; key-derivation function probably better). IMO the real problem with the feature is typical big-company lack of coordination (the amount of free storage isn’t enough for how much people typically need, even right away) and lack of incentives to fix it (the increase in paying customers is probably worth a lot more to whoever caused this change than the increase in annoyed users due to drive-full warnings) and the idea that that people might pay Microsoft for more storage (that you can’t easily pay for remote reliable automatic backup storage when you set the OS up does not feel like a particularly big advantage of free software to me).

I think there are things not to like about this but it doesn’t seem to me to be the obviously terrible thing your comment suggests. Certainly it seems less bad than lots of other recent windows changes.

Re: Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

#100

Post by proactivesvcs »

amanzi wrote: post #50

I'm all for hating on Microsoft for their continued destruction of the local Windows 11 experience, but I actually think this is a good decision. Assuming you're logging in with a Microsoft account, and assuming you have a OneDrive account, it's a better experience to set up the folder backup feature as early as possible in the set-up process. If you really don't want it, it's easy to undo. I still don't like being f…

What happens when your files are considered Bad and Microsoft removes them? When the OneDrive backend suffers bit rot or misconfiguration? What happens when your Microsoft account is compromised? When the photos of your kids in the bath are sent to the police? When you have a 10GB file that's frequently modified and the client then constantly scans it and uploads it? When your abusive partner, relation, co-worker or boss uses this to surveil you, tamper with or remove your files or even plant evidence? When your business or organisation now suffers from liability from not performing due data protection diligence of something they were not informed nor asked consent for? The list of reasons why this is terrible just goes on and on.
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