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Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

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Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#41

Post by marshray »

emeraldd wrote: post #39
marshray wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft employee here, not speaking for the company just my own perspective. I work in Azure, but not on this stuff specifically. Sharepoint has its origins in managing collections of MS Office documents more so than HTML and browsers. It knows about certain document types and tries to do intelligent things with them. It's not necessarily the tool you would use for serving raw data over HTTP with arbitrary Content-…

"It knows about certain document types and tries to do intelligent things with them." There's your problem right there ....

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think it would be an instructive exercise:

Please name three nontrivial, commercial, end-user facing apps or services that know nothing about any file or document types.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#42

Post by DelightfulScone »

marshray wrote: post #41
emeraldd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It knows about certain document types and tries to do intelligent things with them." There's your problem right there ....

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think it would be an instructive exercise: Please name three nontrivial, commercial, end-user facing apps or services that know nothing about any file or document types.

Can we skip the grade school style questions and discuss the fact that people generally don't want storage providers 'doing things' to their files. No matter how 'intelligent' those things are said to be.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#43

Post by higherpurpose »

gagaga wrote: post #28
nivla wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just like "surface" vs "surface pro"! More correctly "Surface RT" vs "Surface Pro". "Surface" was initially Microsoft's interactive table [1], so yeah pretty much a branding disaster if we take a walk down the history lane. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense#Microsoft_...

Surface RT is now just Surface.

Actually "Surface RT" was the "simple" version given by the community, if you can believe that. Typically Microsoft, the official names were "Surface with Windows RT" and "Surface with Windows 8 Pro".

I think the idea was to have "one" device (even though there were actually two different devices, with very different hardware) with the name of Surface, but which came in two versions, one with Windows RT, and one with Windows 8 Pro. So they were telling people: "This is Surface with Windows RT...and this is Surface with Windows 8 Pro".

But yeah, a disaster. Their current names of Surface and Surface Pro may be simpler to use now, but it's actually more confusing for consumers, because this current naming implies Surface Pro is basically Surface, but with a few extra features. When in reality, they are very different. I think this confusion was meant on purpose, because they want people to believe that Windows RT is "just like regular Windows - but with fewer features". They are doing their customers a disservice by trying to trick them like this.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#44

Post by marcosdumay »

marshray wrote: post #41
emeraldd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It knows about certain document types and tries to do intelligent things with them." There's your problem right there ....

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think it would be an instructive exercise: Please name three nontrivial, commercial, end-user facing apps or services that know nothing about any file or document types.

Only file synchronization tools (commercial or not) could ever fit that description, any other kind of tool must manipulate some kind of file.

The only problem is that we are talking exactly about a file synchronization tool. Thus the exercise isn't as valuable as it may appear at first.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#45

Post by wmgries »

clemsen wrote: post #3

If this is true then Microsoft will have a hard time convincing the majority of potential users to switch to OneDrive. Although I can imagine possible use cases altering data without user interaction is unacceptable. What if you had a git repository stored there? (Yes I know this belongs somewhere else but some people might want to do it regardless) Although Dropbox apparently looks at the data to create previews for…

This article is about OneDrive for Business, not OneDrive. OneDrive for Business is for business, as the name suggests. SharePoint maybe slow, but it does have features that users in business like, so having OneDrive for Business behave like SharePoint is fine.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#46

Post by Dylan16807 »

0x0 wrote: post #32
Dylan16807 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

git reset? I can't imagine any way in which it would destructively modify the files under objects/

Why not? The article claimed it modified a .php file. So I'm curious to know if it would modify the equivalent file under .git/objects?

Because the equivalent file is either compressed with a custom header or in a totally-incomprehensible-to-it binary pack.

Let me put it this way: I would be scared to store an svn checkout because of how svn stores metadata copies. I wouldn't worry about a git checkout.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#47

Post by marshray »

marcosdumay wrote: post #44
marshray wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying this is impossible, but I think it would be an instructive exercise: Please name three nontrivial, commercial, end-user facing apps or services that know nothing about any file or document types.

Only file synchronization tools (commercial or not) could ever fit that description, any other kind of tool must manipulate some kind of file. The only problem is that we are talking exactly about a file synchronization tool. Thus the exercise isn't as valuable as it may appear at first.

I found this KB https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2903984 which doesn't mention the term 'file' anywhere (except to refer to the downloaded installer file). It uses the terms 'library' and 'content':

The stand-alone OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) sync client lets users of Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft SharePoint Online in Office 365 sync their personal OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) document library or any SharePoint 2013 or Office 365 team site library to their local computer. This sync relationship provides access to important content both online and offline. The OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) client can be installed side-by-side with previous versions of Office (such as Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft 2007 Office).

I tried the installer. The installation process is branded all over as being a feature of Office.

Is there something other than the substring 'Drive' that gives the expectation of a fully generic file synchronization tool?

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#48

Post by kabdib »

SharePoint has always been a piece of garbage. Unfortunately it's a money making piece of garbage, so there you go.

Inside MS, SharePoint is often used to "track" project documents. Start a project and -poof- your most unfavorite PM has creates a procrustean bed of document folders, all set for you to lose your documents in because none of the categories match anything in the actual product. Like, having whole separate doc folders for Beta 1 and Beta 2 (there's going to be a second beta, and the docs are going to be cloned into those? Really?)

PMs: "Please add your documentation to these folders."

Devs: "When we do that, we lose control of the documents, we can't get at the history, we can't search them, we can't even find stuff in there, and SharePoint is slow and the permissions are always wrong, and a year after the project ships the SharePoint will be destroyed and we will lose all of the documentation." [All of this is true, especially the bit about not very old project documentation completely going away, OMFG].

PMs: "We don't care."

Devs: [check documents into the source tree anyway, and write a mirroring script to copy the things to SharePoint]

PMs: "Stop that."

Devs: "We don't care."

The right answer is, of course, to fire the damned PMs who serially insist on a crappy excuse for a version control system despite everyone else pushing back and saying that it sucked hard. Only saw that happen a couple of times.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#49

Post by marshray »

higherpurpose wrote: post #15

They'll probably blame this one on an "error" again, like how they did when it was found out that Skype was MITM-ing https links, or when Bing was censoring stuff from China globally , and even in English, and in a couple of other cases I don't remember well right now. That seems to be their boilerplate PR response whenever some big privacy infringement happens and many are outraged about it.

I'm interested if you have a cite for MITMing hyperlinks. The only thing I see sounds attributable to old fashioned cookies and ad networks.

Re: Microsoft OneDrive for Business modifies files as it syncs

#50

Post by kenjackson »

kabdib wrote: post #48

SharePoint has always been a piece of garbage. Unfortunately it's a money making piece of garbage, so there you go. Inside MS, SharePoint is often used to "track" project documents. Start a project and -poof- your most unfavorite PM has creates a procrustean bed of document folders, all set for you to lose your documents in because none of the categories match anything in the actual product. Like, having whole separa…

When we do that, we lose control of the documents, we can't get at the history, we can't search them, we can't even find stuff in there,

Except SharePoint does store history and you can search it. And no need to create a second Beta1 and Beta2 folder when you can just mark documents as release = Beta1 or release = Beta2.

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