PSA: Beware new installs on Win 11 and OneDrive

[ejinbc]

Yo

Seems the Ferengis at Microsoft have decided to make OneDrive the default location for USER files. Indeed, you will find your User folders for Documents, Pictures and others in the OneDrive folder - not in the root of the USER directory. Because of the way the folders are linked, this becomes the default path for PT, settings, presets for Plugins, etc.

Undoing this is trickier than just uninstalling OneDrive or turning it off. To actually get your files into the intended Documents folder you have to edit the Registry to remove OneDrive from the User default folders path.

A link I found showing how to do this: https://www.pcgamer.com/onedrive-def...e%20shows%20up.

This really messed up a fresh install I was doing. I am sure this is Microsoft's way of making it "convenient" to start using OneDrive - which will cost you $2 a month. But it is also kind of unethical they way they hide the fact that they have switched where your documents go and it is not obvious unless you go down from the top level of the file structure.

Hope this saves someone some time. I almost bought a Mac last night...

ejinbc

[albee1952]

God, how I hate OneDrive...............

[thebeatless]

This is exactly what icloud does on mac if you're not careful.

Being conned into subscriptions is just part of life these days.

[Darryl Ramm]

My recent One Drive fun was helping somebody set up Windows 11. They had One Drive as the home directory and started copying over GB is stuff from a LAN connection on an old Windows 10 machine. While trying to do work. They noticed the system behaving badly and growing folder in their account and moved all the files out of it to the boot drive, the copy from the Win 10 system was not finished ... I am guessing they had OneDrive still trying to upload new files, while trying to download other files and then they ran out of boot drive space (was set far too small). What a mess.

Maybe the worse thing about these cloud home directories is how some folks believe they have some degree of “backup” provided by this.

[EGS]

I don't seem to have any OneDrive on my W11 desktop. Can't you just uninstall it?

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by EGS

I don't seem to have any OneDrive on my W11 desktop. Can't you just uninstall it?

My 2 cents, I have yet to find an easy way, and(more importantly) I have yet to figure out how to get all my files moved before I uninstall it(fear for losing files).

[EGS]

A doc from Microsoft:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-6efb09f944b0

[ChuckS]

When installing using a MS login, Windows used to ask if you wanted your Documents folder local. Apparently not anymore. Easy fix is right-click OneDrive icon in system tray, select Sync and Backup options, then click Manage Backup. Turn off Documents and anything else you don't want in the cloud. You'll end up with both a local and cloud Documents folders. All installs, etc will use the local folder. You will have to specifically direct files/folders to the cloud documents, which is useful when using multiple computers.

[ejinbc]

All

I think with the latest downloadable install, you must be online to install, you must have an account, and OneDrive is the default Documents/Pictures/etc folder.

I tried a few approaches to changing the default folder locations, but had to resort to a Registry edit to get all the defaults properly reset.

YMMV

ejinbc

[sw rec]

At least for me, it’s done the same thing on the latest Win 10 update, and I was like “Where the ¥#%*** are all my documents???” Grrr.��