Microsoft never learns, IT admins rage as a new OneDrive app invades Windows 11 and keeps coming back when you remove it
https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/08/04/microsoft-never-learns-it-admins-rage-as-a-new-onedrive-app-invades-windows-11-and-keeps-coming-back-when-you-remove-it/Open linkView original on piefed.ca
34 replies
Excuse me, a photo gallery that takes 1gb of RAM, especially in this economy, doesn't seem "quite well built".
This fucking web app wrappers, Picasa had 100x more features while using 50x less resources
I want to switch but I just can't give up winrar free trial
So does Copilot and Microsoft Copilot 365. I enforce GPOs to ban/remove them, and every couple Windows updates, it reinstalls, and each next day I see my alerts pop up they're back.
I corrupt the files. I take ownership, remove inheritance, and then deny Trusted Installer and System access. My windows systems generally have several components neutered like this. Major upgrades will sometimes overwrite my changes, but mostly they stick. Absolutely nonfunctional.
Fun fact: Microsoft will try to guess your passwords to open and scan your encrypted archives when uploaded to OneDrive.
Microsoft also hands your BitLocker recovery keys to the government on request.
Microsoft also uses your local machine’s GDID to deanonymize and track you across the internet for the government.
These are paid surveillance services Microsoft provides to the government, paid for by your tax dollars. No wonder they desperately want to force you to use OneDrive.
Wow, that's how it managed to find "malware" (not actual malware) in a password protected rar that I shared
Hey now! I can honestly say Microsoft has never done that with any of my computers!
(Why yes, they do all run Linux. How did you know?)
If any of your Linux machines use SystemD, then Microsoft has done that with those machines. SystemD has a global system ID that can be used like the Windows GDID apparently.
Tell me more. I may have to move to a distro without systemdeez.
machine-id
Okay but correlate that with the same methods and usage and by the same threat actor (MS) in this case.
Or any of the combination, as a treat
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's extremely implausible.
Absolutely zero reason a init system needs admin date of birth. Yes separate issue entirely, but it’s showing a trend and the direction things are headed.
https://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_473
Well if I'm already paying for Windows, I might as well use it, right? /s
What do you mean I'm out of space? I just bought an external hard drive on Thursday!
You say /s, but that's the literal exact reason that Microsoft has all the market share.
One drive was the final kick that made me jump to Linux. I had removed all my files from it and turned it off several times over the last few years then randomly, something like The Sims 2 will have a brand new game file and I know, One Drive stole my documents... Again.
Well the most recent time they took all my shit and put it back in One Drive was after that update where randomly One Drive was glitching out hardcore. It deleted all my files. All the files that should not have been in there to begin with. Microsoft help basically said, too bad so sad, if you were paying for it maybe we would help you.
I installed Mint that day. Haven't been back.
That sounds a lot like typical Windows features over the years. Using WIndows at work today I unpinned Co-pilot and that stupid new Notes app from my taskbar three times. They kept coming back, not right away, but ninja like.
Our O365 admin panel keeps telling me there is a problem because 0 of our employees can easily find copilot and I could fix it by forcing it to be pinned to the taskbar.
We've noticed you unpinned the apps. We're sure you didn't mean to, so we fixed it for you. You're welcome.
Are you sure it wasn't your workplace group policy bringing them back?
Unlikely. Microsoft took away GPO control of taskbar and start menu a while back, and I don't think they restored it. And even if they did, a company would be more likely unpin and block them than to push them.
I'd love to think that, but my company is currently holding weeklong seminars to make sure that every employee is using Copilot and ChatGPT as much as possible.
Back in the day, I had my photos in multiple locations, some on local external drives, some in small cloud storage pockets….a bit of mess, really. Since I had a great deal on O365 family plan I thought - why not gather all of my various photo collections, and consolidate them on a single cloud storage - what could possibly go wrong? This is how I discovered that OneDrive doesn’t know how to read EXIF metadata properly. I ended up with basically a pile of over 30k pictures and videos, completely out of any order. Never again.
How to turn off OneDrive with Group Policy.
Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive.
The last setting disables OneDrive on your system; make sure to change it to Disabled if you use OneDrive.
Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
Every Windows debloater script comes with the caveat of "until the next update". Instead of becoming a Windows Defucking Engineer I just left it entirely.
Except that these are group policy settings. The stuff they provide to allow businesses to manage their endpoints. Businesses that actually have enough size and money for Microsoft to care. Businesses that can have strict audit and data security requirements relating to things like not allowing data to even brush against something like OneDrive.
To be more direct, the only reason I can't count the number of times they've broken a Group Policy is because I legitimately don't recall it happening in the past decade.
https://lemmy.today/comment/25761328
Yes and no. They started to limit GPOs. Some are only valid on Enterprise Licenses or Windows Server and will be ignored by your usual Windows Pro License at home. With Windows Home, you're SOL regarding GPOs.
Also they started to migrate some of these settings to their Intune Device Management and will ignore those if not set via Intune.
Read: Companies can still disenshittify Windows to some degree, but they make it harder and harder for normal people to do so.
Won't work for Win11 Home. But it's MASterly easy to conver your Home to Pro or even Enterprise. MASterly easy.
Nice pun but might as well link to it. It's already MASsively popular.
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
For the people on mobile without needle-like fingers.
Right ... you're operating your touchscreen with your dick again, aren't you?
I most certainly did uninstall one drive.
Yes, by using selecting format disk in the Linux installer.