Microsoft flips the switch: Word will now save new documents to OneDrive by default — and that changes everything
In a move that could redefine how millions work, Microsoft is steering Word users toward the cloud, sparking debates over convenience, control, and the future of local storage.
Microsoft Word logo in Windows 11 Search. Word and OneDrive just got a lot closer. (Image credit: Windows Central) Microsoft held a special OneDrive and Copilot event today where it announced a number of new features for the cloud-storage service. Buried in the announcements is one change that Microsoft is soon making to Word that might ruffle some feathers among those who are still pushing back against OneDrive and the cloud.
"Starting today, new documents in Word desktop on Windows (Insiders) now save directly to OneDrive, with autosave enabled," says Microsoft. This means that creating new documents in Word in the future will automatically save said documents to your OneDrive storage, with autosave enabled from the get-go.
The change is designed to make it easier for users to back up and access their documents across devices, but some might find Word attempting to automatically upload documents to the cloud by default to be a privacy concern. Many will likely not even notice that Word's behavior has changed, as the entire saving and backup process is automatic.
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/microsoft-office/microsoft-is-making-word-automatically-save-new-documents-to-onedrive-by-defaultOpen linkView original on feddit.uk
That’s clearly for Copilot to scan all your documents for "indexing" without your consent
Is it even possible for regular person to get a an enterprise license of windows?
Seems like of this is intentional to funnel people into OS that spies and steals.
Try Linux and LibreOffice.
Daily driver for the last 10+ years!
and Collabora Office on mobile devices!
On it
I've heard that there is a mass grave one can visit where you can find information about obtaining and activating enterprise versions.
there is an ancient spell that will help you:
india romeo mike space hotel tango tango papa sierra colon slash slash golf echo tango dot alpha charlie tango india victor alpha tango echo delta dot whisky india november space pipe space india echo xray
check out massgrave.dev
Ohh wow... Looks very interesting. Thank you
Goto ebay (cover your mouth and nose)
Is this actually a valid strategy?
Its implied consent just like when a woman looks at you, duh.
Bullshit. The change is so microsoft can mine more data to feed openai.
Time to start saving ai poisoning documents
Jokes on them, I use AI for all my text writing anyway.
I feel like it's more direct than that. They want more OneDrive subscriptions. Cloud storage is absurdly profitable
Yet another reason to use alternatives to Microsoft.
Tell that to people who have to use certain software that only works with Office for work.
Even more fun in my case: for security reasons I am not allowed to save my work in any cloud.
The current admin? Were you asleep during the Snowden scandal? PRISM? Four Eyes? The US, and services that store data in the US, are never trust worthy and are always stealing your data regardless of who is the clown in power at a given year.
It really is.
There are laws against going into someone's garden and picking their fruit, because fruit is valuable produce. This is slightly different, they invite you into their website, then they steal your valuable data for their commercial purposes without paying you for it.
Oh no! Guess I better continue to use Libre Office instead.
And Collabora Office on mobile devices :)
It seems like every new day has a new reason to remind me why I'm glad I ditched Microsoft.
They did this already with Excel, and broke a lot of macros. Also changed how it could use IE for automation, and of course there's no way to convert it to Edge. If Microsoft didn't have 99% of the business world already tied up in their stuff they'd go out of business soon for the stupid things they break of their own products.
Although it took me forever to switch to linux I switch to libreoffice in the early twenty teens I think. Once you could export to pdf it became the better way.
Does not change my opinion :-)
This company is becoming more and more toxic, and everybody should abandon their stuff ASAP!
Thanks, I hate it.
I switched too but I would be lying if I said it is easy. The muscle memory and expectations are there for office, I hate them but it is hard for people to leave them.
Meh. That's why LibreOffice exists.
Microsoft is steering customers to Linux
Congratulations, you've just won the play stupid games and win stupid prices game.
No reason to complain, your documents can now be handed over to the authorities quickly and efficiently without any inconvenience to you, and we will also use them to train AI.
In the near future:
You can now open all your documents from OneDrive for the low price of 10 cent per document per time you open it. Also you don't have to worry about where to store anymore, it's all completely locked in to Microsoft formats, so you can't really move it to another platform anyway.
"All your files are belong to us"
Nice try M$, I completely removed OneDrive from all of my Win11 installs. It still tries to get me to save to the folder that once upon a time was OneDrive by default. Auto save off, and save as on every save and select the folder on my file server.
Kindly asking for a tutorial.
The easiest way is firing up Chris Titus' script on the Terminal, going to Tweaks and selecting the OneDrive removal script. I don't endorse Chris Titus' content... but the script does work well as an aggregator for a bunch of other scripts that you'd have a hard time finding or running yourself.
Well here we are 9 days later, my bad.
Didn't want to write it out, so here is a LLM writing it more succinctly than myself:
Windows 10 Option 1: Using Settings
Press Windows + I to open Settings.
Click Apps.
Under Apps & features, scroll through the list or use the search box to find the program you want to remove.
Click the program, then click Uninstall.
Follow the prompts from the program’s uninstaller to complete the removal.
Option 2: Using Control Panel
Press Windows + R, type control, and press Enter to open Control Panel.
Click Programs → Programs and Features.
Scroll through the list to find the program you want to remove.
Right-click the program and select Uninstall.
Follow the uninstallation wizard to complete the process.
Windows 11 Option 1: Using Settings
Press Windows + I to open Settings.
Click Apps from the left-hand menu.
Click Installed apps.
Scroll or search for the program you want to remove.
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) next to the app and select Uninstall.
Confirm by clicking Uninstall again and follow the program’s uninstaller prompts.
Option 2: Using Control Panel (same as Windows 10)
Press Windows + R, type control, and press Enter.
Click Programs → Programs and Features.
Select the program you want to uninstall.
Click Uninstall and follow the prompts.
I was trying to create an Excel pie chart based on a downloaded CSV file. No big, but something I might only need once a year. Couldn't remember the PivotTable params. Search in help. It offers to do it for me. Sure, I think, not realizing it would try to turn on CoPilot, then try to upload the file to their cloud for analysis, then save it to OneDrive cloud.
The only thing that stopped it was that by default the 'auto-save' toggle wasn't on. So it stopped and complained. Killed it and started over, making sure everything was local. Ugh.
Before I got really into FOSS, there was a glitch at my college which revoked my Office365 licence. I switched to LibreOffice and never looked back, even when the glitch was patched.
But they've been doing that for ages. I had to change it more than a year ago.
Yeah, WTF, this guy just used his computer for the first time in 2 years?
OneNote stopped working for me because of some OneDrive connectivity issue. It wouldn't give me the option to just save locally
Rather than fight with it, I just stopped using it. There are other note taking programs
It's no a privacy issue to me, it's usability. My harddrive is always there and connected. The internet and OneDrive are not. More than anything else, availability is the #1 thing I need with basic office applications
I've spent the last year or so migrating small businesses to Linux.
Thus far none of them want to go back and this announcement is just another reason for people to move away from them.
Isn't onedrive a paid feature? What if you don't pay for it?
If it's like Google, they give you a seemingly generous amount of storage for free. Then they causally switch where you are saving everything to their cloud (one drive, Google drive) and then, if they have done their math right, a few years later you start getting polite prompts to upgrade your storage so you don't lose all your stuff. Usually by then you are invested enough that spending the time pulling everything back from there and storing it locally seems hardly worth the effort when it only costs $3 a month or whatever to quadruple your storage and kick the can down the road.
Rince and repeat
Apple does the same with icloud storage-many apps use the space to back up their data.
Google does the same with gmail and Google drive- your emails fill the space in your cloud.
If anything, MS are behind on this particular enshittification
Who the fuck uses word except children?
a metric shit ton of businesses.
Like small ones? I've worked for a few corporations, and the only Microsoft products we used (other than the OS) were Outlook and Excel. We were specifically told DO NOT OPEN WORD DOCUMENTS. Maybe that's just me.
Lol what. Every person I know that works in a corporate environment uses Microsoft's entire suite. Never heard of anything else. I don't like it either, but every corporation does it.
What the fuck corporations are you working for? I worked for Petco, Geico, and Spectrum (I'm sorry, I know their services suck). We were taught and TOLD not to do that. We were told IF YOU OPEN A MICROSOFT OFFICE DOCUMENT, IT'S A PHISHING EMAIL AND IT'S GOING TO RUN A MACRO.
Dog, I'm honestly getting pissed off.
Hey everyone! This guy's getting pissed off about being wrong. See? No one cares.
Who are you?
How would that logic make any sense? If you're worried about macros as a vector for attack when opening Microsoft Word files... why would you accept Excel files, that can also contain macros?
i work for a large corp and ms products are forced on us. :/
Damn, same, but not word
I'd bet the majority of office jobs?
Lol. I had this conversation with a coworker. We were tasked with building product documentation and user guide. I suggested we use LaTeX or typst so it looks professional, and follows proper formatting. They want to use word. Word always looks like janky shit, and edits are a disaster even if you follow best-practises
A recruiter just asked me to give them my CV in Word because their ATS couldn't hack my PDF resume.
People whose employers retain a Microsoft contract
Nowadays it seems like the children are mostly using Google Docs thanks to their time on Chromebooks in school.