Windows 11 is now enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission

I don't like leaving negative or hyperbolic comments on HN, but this was enraging and unacceptable to me. It's hard to convey without coming off as unhinged. I only ever boot into Windows nowadays when I need to compile and test a Windows build of software. I understand Microsoft has built up good will through efforts like VS Code, but it's all undone because of things like this. I avoid MS products, they cannot be trusted.

Fast forward 1 month later, we broke up, and I was still seeing her stuff popping on my computer, as "recently opened" in the file explorer, or "recommended" in the start menu. Since we recently broke up it was really affecting my mood to be constantly reminded of her.

I struggled for like 3 months to find the option to deactivate it. I even considered formating my computer. It really felt like a private space violation, like my computer wasn't even my own, and all that just with a naive email login followed buy a ton of implicit behaviors.

But I genuinely cannot figure out what Microsoft's vision for Windows 11 is. Or if they even have one beyond "idk, shove crap in, meet OKR, get promotion... maybe?"

For a while, it seemed like they were focused on making sure that they could link as much of your activity on your computer to you, as a person - witness the ever-increasing challenge of an offline-only account, which means the value of knowing the email address of the signed in user is substantial. And then they embedded ad delivery as a first class participant in the platform - the sort of crap that used to be common from people who installed Bonzai Dancer Cursor Free or such is now literally part of the OS.

... and then it's just gone weird. AI with Copilot, Recall, etc. There doesn't appear to be a coherent vision of what it is, beyond a place to shovel crap, deliver unwanted applications (that they get paid to shove at people, presumably), and install lots of updates.

Linux has problems, but there are no shortage of distros that just run apps, without delivering all your behavioral surplus up for collection, and that's what (IMO) an OS should be. Windows 11, from the outside, doesn't look like it's serving me. Except in the sense that it's focused on "serving me to Microsoft for further subversion of my will."

... and apparently Windows will now orange screen? Last time someone offered to let me touch a Windows machine, it orange screened in protest before I could even touch anything. At least the feeling is mutual.

It's not possible to install a local account any more. Apparently all the loopholes have been closed. It just loops you back to the "oops looks like you lost internet access" page.

I made a new account - installer<date>@outlook.com with no@thankyou.com as the backup email (which you have to give). Microsoft didn't like that, so it made me go through 10 minutes of captchas (captcas in the OS install - wtf)

Then it forced me to give it my birth date, ostensibly to check if I'm of age. Could just ask "are you older than 13" but then you don't get that sweet data.

Finally I booted into the OS, and I made a local account.

I spent 30 minutes going through the awful menus trying and probably failing to disable all the crap that sends all my data to Microsoft. Some of which can't be disabled in the Home edition.

Then I tried to delete my "installer" account. Oops, sorry, we have to "verify" who you are by sending an email to no@thankyou.com. Oh, you don't have that? No worries, just give us your real email address and we'll allow you to log you in after 30 days.

Then later I check my real name gmail account and there's a Microsoft email with a login code. I never gave MS this email address. What the hell??

So we can just buy Pro and know we're getting an OS that we can configure instead of an OS that gets hijacked by Microsoft every single windows update cycle.

It seems like microsoft can do whatever they want to windows, and treat the users with as little disregard as they please - and there will be no consequences. Their users will either allow it, or jump through the config registry to disable the latest unwanted behavior.

I'm not missing anything. I've got the newest Nvidia drivers and kernel which were all very easy to install and one search away to find instructions on how to do it. Everything is rock solid. No surprise dark patterns, no enabling/disabling of issues. I keep Timeshift backups of the last 2 days and one for last week and month. If whatever I am playing with on the system goes haywire, I just restore my system with Timeshift.

I've also been giving up on modern gaming, too much enshittification (loot boxes, engagement driven gameplay, messages for modern audiences, etc.) happening lately, but everything I've thrown at Proton ran great. I've been rediscovering the great libraries of retro gaming consoles, especially the DS and 3DS so my computer is actually a workhorse now and my gaming is single player retro bliss.

I still don't like being forced to log in with a Microsoft account as part of the set-up. I prefer to log in locally, and then incrementally turn on the cloud features. But I've voted with my wallet and have moved to Linux and macOS for day-to-day desktop computing. I still keep a Windows 10 VM around for when I need it, but am doing all I can to avoid the "modern" Windows desktop experience.

Microsoft has all of the apis available to monitor changes on its own file system. Why does their solution seemingly run naive file comparisons to detect changes? What is it doing burning all of that computation time? Why does it struggle with tracking 100k files? A bubble sort written in Ruby should be able to handle 100k anything in seconds.

It's 300,000 file limit means pretty much no developer would risk it considering the thousands of files in a typical app.

Believe me when OneDrive lost a heap of my files this year I was not impressed to learn of this serious limitation. To be fair GoogleDrive and DropBox also have similar limitations.

Azure Storage on the other hand doesn't have the limitation, is much cheaper and much faster. It's UI sux though.

I'm still searching for a reasonable cloud backup solution. Until then cheap external drives are the answer.

So it looks like I’m in it for another Windows-issued flogging at least.

Mean time, they got all your personal files to train their AI on, didn't they?

This is basically the same. They want your files to start doing copilot in the cloud for you'

It doesnt work to keep your data even if you acceptbthe premise that they wont keep yourbdata.

Hey, Microsoft: If you want to turn Windows into a bigger cash cow, how about charging a yearly fee for security patches, but then leaving Windows just the way it is (ideally at around the Windows 7 or Windows 10 mark), instead of encouraging your most loyal users to despise your product and start fantasizing about otherwise-uncomfortable alternatives? In any case, it's now increasingly likely that I won't follow you onto Windows 11. But go ahead, feel free to jump off the cliff by yourself, if you insist.

I was desperate until I found an excellent multiplatform open source project for backups called Kopia!

Highly recommended, even entry level users can work with it.

Is this really true? Does it never get reinstalled or enabled by a cumulative update?

Enshitification ensues.