OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions

ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 676 points – OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions
windowsreport.com

According to the latest reports, Windows 11 has made an independent choice by automatically turning on OneDrive folder backup for Desktop, Pictures, Documents, Music, and Video folders without your permission. This signifies that, whether you approve or not, everything is becoming coordinated with the cloud.

This action from Microsoft fits into a larger pattern where big tech companies cleverly (or not so cleverly) promote their services and subscriptions to users. It isn’t only about Microsoft; there have been instances of Google doing something similar with Google Photos and its storage plans.

Keep an eye on your settings, particularly when you have just finished setting up a new device or updating your operating system. Companies such as Microsoft constantly seek methods to link users with their environments—sometimes without permission.

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When you download something without permission, you’re a criminal

When MicroShit does it, it’s a feature

Well you see, they put it in page 69 of their EULA that got updated last week that they emailed directly to your spam folder. Since you didn't opt out of that clause my sending a registered letter to their offices in Uganda, Japan, Washington, and Ukraine, it is considered that you agreed to the EULA.

Gotta get scrapping all that data to train copilot+++

Vote this up higher. I wouldn't be surprised at all if everything ends up in their models.

This is probably the only reason microsoft recall exists, as it is completely useless for anything else.

Oh it was your data? Oops! Embarrassing! Anyway, introducing MAIS! Microsoft AI system!

Rapist mentality.

Your honour, I asked her if she wanted to have it and she said no. I wasn't sure what that meant so I asked again. And to make things clearer I told her that "yes" and "maybe later" where the only options. She still didn't say yes, but after some time I decided that "later" had come. So I Azure you, I did nothing wrong.

Yes, this. That's essentially the attitude of all of these corporate exec. They know it's wrong and do it anyways.

I'm pretty sure they don't think it's wrong.

Maybe maybe not. But they sure as shit do things they know they wouldn't be able to get away with in any other situation.

Yeah, that's sadly what a lot of companies do. Push it until people complain, then back off a little for a while and then push further once people are used to the status quo. Rinse and repeat.

Louis Rossman is a far right extremist who promotes unfounded conspiracy theories against technical corporations.

I'm wondering how many people won't know if that's serious or not.

You could say if you're serious or not, but hey

Yes, he does talk a lot about "what ifs" but a lot of his "conspiracy theories" are in the realm of reality. If you do your own research, I think you'll see that most companies are getting shittier as time goes on.

Every new "feature" I hear about in Windows Privacy Invasion Goes to 11, the happier I am that I switched to Linux. It's been mostly smooth and games have just worked. Though I know that much of that is because of Proton.

Funnily, or sadly enough, OneDrive integration is one of the things I miss from my windows days. It's just extremely convenient how it's integrated into explorer and office. And how well the smart/ on-demand sync works. I can't find a setup to replicate this on Linux.

That being said I don't intend to go back and this move is insane.

If you are willing to self-host, I've found Nextcloud integrates well in Linux. I had been using it before I made the switch and it worked out just fine afterwards. I originally set it up to have a cloud-sync option for my phone, which didn't mean passing everything through Google first. But, it also proved to be a handy way to sync files on my desktop as well.
It just shows up as another folder on my system and Libre Office is happy to work on files from there (with some permissions fiddling due to flatpak).

Yes, but I can't get the virtual file system/on-demand sync to work properly. It turn off every time I reboot. I gave up after a while since it's experimental for now anyway.

That's interesting. I've not had that sort of issue. On my phone (Android), my son's laptop (Windows) and my desktop (Arch Linux) the NextCloud clients all sync perfectly and run at start up. Granted, knowing that the Linux landscape is fractured, I wouldn't be overly surprised if the client had issues on some flavors of Linux.

The client works fine, it's just the virtual file system option that turns off after a reboot.

My apologies, I was not familiar with the difference. I'm going to have to test this when I am back at my system. Looking at the docs, it does seem to be experimental in Linux. But it seems odd that it would turn off automagically.

I use Nexcloud-client and so far, it syncred the ~/nextcloud folder pretty good with my Linux devices so far, but I do not jave huge files in it either. Mostly my keepass file.

I'm in a similar situation - I'm a (retired) Unix admin and have Linux servers at home but I'm still on windows for my desktop because of OneDrive. If you use it as intended, it works really well. I can login to my laptop, my phone or either of my wife's PC's and all my stuff is just there.

Yes, I've tried nextcloud and it's close, but the windows sync client is (was?) broken - the upload speed throttling logic is broken and it was going to take ages to sync my data. I went to the nextcloud community and it seemed to be a known issue that know one cares about because the sync just happens in the background and it's done when it's done.

As I typed this I realised that if I move to Linux desktop I don't care about the windows sync client :-) So now I've just got the issue that I won't get my wife off windows and if we're paying for 5TB of cloud storage, I might as well use it. Yes, I know there are ways to use OneDrive on Linux, but it doesn't look as seamless and I'd be always concerned that Microsoft will do something to break it.

Thank you! I thought was going nuts. It's been such a long time since I had think about whether something is synced or a way to set it up. With OneDrive I could just grab the files I needed from the cloud and push them off the drive if I needed space. It really took away any hassle about sync.

It really feels like moving to Linux is a step back 10 years when it comes to cloud storage.
I also tried nextcloud but the smart / on-demand/ virtual file system is experimental in the Linux client and doesn't work as seemlesly as OneDrive. Besides being turned off every time I restart.

I had luck with increasing memory allocation in my php config for mine. Also having more ram may help if you have bigger files. Afaik nextcloud doesn't have caching like unraid or truenas. I'm not aware of transfer speed issues. I've also no issues saturating my 1gig connection to it either.

My issue was specifically the windows sync client - not server or web related. I turned on debug in the client and watched the logs and saw it making stupid (IMHO) decisions about speed throttling.

I've been using next loud with my Nas for years. I sync things to it. Linux Windows Mac, doesn't matter. Even my phone.

ExpanDrive is not free (as in libre or beer), but it's great for OneDrive integration with the filesystem. Been using it for this for a few months now with no issues. Just my two cents.

Thanks! I looked at it but I would like to stop giving money to MS. So my plan is to ultimately move away from OneDrive.

...only if you HAVE onedrive account it can reach.

This is a fantastic use case for NOT using a Microsoft account and instead a local account. No Microsoft authenticated account, no Onedrive.

Good thing they are phasing out local accounts, then.

/s

until you can no longer log on with just a local Account. or your Data gets backed up for you anyway. Enshittification is one exec decision away

I wonder about Microsoft's liability on this one. People store all sorts of things in there, some personal, and some corporate things that are at least non-public, if not outright sensitive. Yeah, people should be using an encrypted drive for especially sensitive info (not that this would stop Microsoft when they own the OS), but they don't, and it's not for Microsoft to force the issue.

Did their legal department actually sign off on this? Or did someone in MS legal just shit a brick when they saw the headlines?

If Microsoft was a smaller company, this would completely ruin them and the next headline would be them declaring bankruptcy after failing to fight off 50,000 lawsuits. Fortunately for them, laws don't apply to companies their size.

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Looks like I'm installing Linux tonight.

Even on windows 10, Onedrive uploaded random crap you don't want and then yells at you that the space is full and buy a subscription. It has to be the worst cloud service of them all because of the bullshit integration. It was easier to disable and remove it than to work with it.

I have disabled and uninstalled it, but office 365 still enforces it as the default save as location, so now when I use the dialogue, the system hangs for 30 seconds. Even disabled it in the policy management, but no dice.

@viking @Audacious Wise Registry Cleaner may help here. It's like the old ccleaner but without the spying and complaints to buy. The issue is most likely registry related.

Apple does it too if you sign in in the Settings. iCloud gets booted up the moment you sign in and everything goes to the iCloud

Not everything. By default the contents of your desktop and documents folder, both of which are easy to switch off if you want.

True, although their OSes don’t really disclose what is and is not being stored in the cloud by default. I like iCloud syncing, so it doesn’t bother me, but I could see how this would annoy others who want everything local.

I thought part of the apple agreement was that all your data is on their servers. Isn't that why my media messages from Android to Apple phones look like shit, because Apple only sends shit through their servers and refuses to adapt the industry standard for mobile data?

They turn iMessage on by default when you sign in because signing into your account and signing into iCloud purposefully conflated. Its very sneaky and arguably just as bad as the whole Microsoft local accounts lol. Also iCloud backups didn't use to be e2ee and iMessage backups which also weren't e2ee because the iCloud backups werent e2ee and held the keys to all the iMessage. Funny stuff.

To sign into your account locally and avoid iCloud, you have to sign in in the AppStore on both iOS and MacOS. Its fhe only way. On Mac, iCloud is activated by signing in the Settings place (same as iOS) or that Apple Media Account/Services modal they pester you with constantly.

This is to say, they turn it on by default under the facade that every Appl user would want to have all their private communications redirected through their servers via iMessage (its free and blue message so cool) and then there's multiple backdoors to your conversations even tho its said its e2ee and only accessible to you

Part of agreement

C'mon, seriously, nobody reads those. They're way too long and they get updated all the time. Its easier to disabke iCloud and use real proper apps like Signal. I avoid the Appl native apps like the plague. Their privacy nutrition labels should all be No Data Collected or only like Disgnostic stuff but basically every one captures UserContent and other invasive data.

Install Linux already, just get it over with.

I'm still learning but it's so much less aggressive in Linux land.

Make VR work on Linux

My understanding is that it is working much better now than a few months ago. I haven't actually put it to the test yet, but it is on my list of things to try once I have time to set up my index again.

Literally one of the very few things keeping me with a Windows partition, though it doesn't get used very often

I have it somewhat working on Nobara after SteamVR updated a few weeks back. It works, but is rather unstable and you got to reboot any time it craps out. 6/10 technically functional, but needs work.

It doesn't help that my headset has had odd issues even on Windows since it's refurbished.

Yea I fucked around a lot to make it work, Nobara is usually the most stable one to get vr working but valve keeps pushing out updates that completely fucks up the vr launch process. The other big issue is asynchronous reprojection missing.

People usually don't use linux because or app compatibility ik wine exists but it just doesn't not work with all apps

To really switch to Linux people need to accept that for a good experience you may need to switch off some software to alternative software.

This wasn't a big deal for me personally and I'm happy I use more open source software now, it can be a bigger issue especially if you need specific tools for work.

I stopped using the word "alternative" as it implies it maybe be less good. I just say "open source" now.

In reality, open source software almost always is a better product as it's designed by people wanting it, not by a bunch of managers wanting more money directing a bunch of developers who just want their salary.

Also: a lot of the mainstream software has Linux clients, if you look for them

I've been on Linux desktop and server for over 20 years now, reaching 25. Never looked back, never will

Most apps have open source versions which work better anyway. I've been on a Linux desktop literally for the past 20+ years now, never looked back

Ngl I have been using some of the open source alternatives on linux now

I stopped calling them alternatives because that implies that its somehow a "B" version, less than "the original". Many times these lesser know softwares are superior to their closed source counterparts

Yes, install Linux and the end up using O365 in the cloud anyways 🤡

I do exactly that, yes. Unfortunately I my company we have to use the msoffice shit, so I use the online version which is as hilariously bad as one would expect. Same for teams which is just a sad shitshow

Say about Google what you want, but at least the google drive tools work well.

In any case, what is your point?

I wonder how this will work with local accounts

"We've gone ahead and synced all your files to the cloud! Create an account to access them once again.

Enter your email: ______

[ Click here to delay the inevitable ]"

It just won't work for a local account. This is for those who sign in/up. And those who are forced to sign in/up in the first setup. My hate towards Microsoft and all the companies like it increases every fucking day.

Coincidentally, they make it harder to use a local account with every update.

Not sure there will be any.

Remember when Word and Excel Autosave did what you expected it to?

Well, I deleted Onedrive a long time ago, so no it won't.

It will sneak back on. Linux is the only answer.

Windows is the only operating system that is actively working against you these days. Sneaks in shit settings. Renenables disabled settings. Spies on you. Requires convoluted registry ha ks to stop some of the bullshit. And you always gotta be in too of it.

No thanks, not for me.

People keep saying this, but I've never had to redo any of the changes I've made.

I'm guessing you audit all the network traffic out of your machine too, to ensure things are not being exfiltrated? I assume you've also never had settings turned back on after an update? I sure as shit have.

I've never had the settings turned back on after an update, but no I don't monitor my network traffic, if I cared that much, I'd already be on linux.

Last night I updated my BIOS and afterwards my Linux Boot Manager entry was gone. Almost expected but still didn't prepare a LiveUSB, stupid. Had to boot into Windows for the first time in a year and was greeted with the message "Hey some security thing changed, your pin is no longer working. Wanna create a new one?" Of course you need to log in to your Microsoft account for that, otherwise you straight up can't use your install anymore.

Your mistake was using a MS account for your windows install

Believe me, I know :D

I have half a mind to just nuke both partitions and just reinstall Arch on the entire drive.

Although I am wondering what would have happened, if I didn't have Windows installed after the BIOS update. No boot entries at all? 🤔

How does one block this?

Microsoft is an abusive ex. It will keep abusing you because it knows no other way. You can waste your days trying to fight against it, trying to figure out how to disable and remove whatever new privacy invasive anti-consumer bloat Microsoft decides to roll out that Tuesday.

Or you can leave and switch to Linux and waste time there instead. Tux is all about that respect and is handsome to boot. He might be a bit sensitive and break down rarely so you might need to spare a few to make sure he's ok, but it's nothing a little love can't handle. And he's only going to get better and stronger as he grows. You might even look forward to receiving updates (wow, I know). A stark contrast from your abusive ex.

Not sure why these articles are only coming out now. My work bought me a win11 computer a few months ago and I was surprised to learn that the first few things I downloaded to the desktop showed up on my one drive. I don't really use the account I have on it for much, and it was easy enough to turn off in settings but it was still a shock.

Just another invasion of privacy by a giant corpo that none of its users asked for

It's been the default since 2015 when Windows 10 launched, although there was an obvious button to opt out during first-time setup back then which was then respected permanently. It's got gradually less prominent over time, and maybe the article's just doing a really bad job of explaining that it's no longer something where your initial preference is permanent and it'll change back to the default every so often.

It cannot be that profitable to have just a bunch of random data on their servers. I have so much junk and random bullshit on my drives, it would take a week of labor just to clean my shit well enough to use it for AI training and as soon as I got any notification about cloud space being full i'd turn syncing off - i sure as hell wouldn't fork over any money for a subscription. This is such a big bridge to burn, and the server overhead must be massive.... I just don't understand how they could possibly think this is a good business decision.

Idk, maybe i'm just too deep into privacy/FOSS/selfhosting headspace to see things clearly from the normal-consumer standpoint but I just do not understand this. I really wish someone would leek an internal conversation at one of these companies that explains the big-picture strategy with this move.

They're thinking quarterly. Improves OneDrive usage stats. They can also then coerce customers later by saying they're running out of storage. I'm sure some users will pay, thinking they're about to lose family photos and other important data

I guess... I am still very skeptical the profit margin even if some people do end up paying for the storage. We're talking about petabytes on petabytes of data.... How many people need to pay a cloud subscription fee to pay for the overhead of the servers?

Idk. This is super suss to me but again, I am clearly not the target market for this service so maybe I don't have a firm grasp of the landscape.

It is shit but it’s easy to turn off.

Doesn’t really matter if it is easy to turn off. By that point it is already too late, all your files have been uploaded to their server.

How?

Right click Onedrive Icon, settings, sync and backup, Manage Backup, turn off what ever you don't want backed up. At that point all your desktop / document content will disappear (looks like Microsoft linked the normal and Onedrive folders, which is a useful trick occasionally) so move everything out of Onedrive back into your normal folders

At this point onedrive can stick a finger in your asshole... And notbing would be done about it!

I got nothing to hide anyway

Cool, give me your SSN and bank account numbers

I don't give my number to no scrubs...

Only to mega corps and Catholic clergy ;)

Thats okay, bad actors are already coming out with tools to take your info from these new "features". No need for your permission.