This is one thing I still can't seem to rid myself of with Windows 10. Is there something in the Windows 10 Pro group policy thing I can do to send OneDrive back to hell from whence it came? I've only managed to get my files to save to a directory not controlled by it, however the quick links to media folders still point to the one drive folder even after manually changing them numerous times.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I'm confused. Are you logged in to OneDrive?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I loathe OneDrive. It's the flakiest, most unreliable piece of software in MS's current end-user-focused stable...

...but it still needs you to log in. If you log out from OneDrive it does nothing. It's a separate login from the Windows login, too, if you've used one of those to install Windows.

I genuinely haven't used Win10 in enough time I don't recall if it gave you more notifications to re-enable it, but after refusing to log in and taking OneDrive out of my startup tasks I don't think it's come up again on any of my Windows devices.

[–] PillowTalk420@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I don't even have a login for it, let alone try to use it. What it has done, however, has made itself the standard "My Documents" folder in the user profile. I am not using it for anything, I have that all on a totally separate drive and mostly everything correctly points to the new destination I have for My Documents, My Games, My Videos, etc.

However, I can not get the Quick Links on the left side of an explorer window to stick to the new destination. It keeps reverting back to the OneDrive folder within the user folder so using them just sends me to an empty folder.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago

See, then you fell for a dark pattern, because I refused to use it on first boot and there is no One Drive folder in this brand new computer I'm currently using at all. It isn't the standard My Documents folder, it doesn't have a folder at all and the application icon isn't on my system tray.

That's why I was asking about the Win10 install being different, but I've installed Win 11 twice this year, once in a computer for personal use that currently doesn't have any One Drive folder at all and one for work where One Drive is logged in to a work account (along with Office 365) and it only syncs that work folder, not the personal folders, photos and whatnot. You can absolutely have a Windows (11, anyway) install with no One Drive synced to anything at all, or even running.

It sucks that Windows designs its install process as a dark pattern-ladden attempt to get you to sign up for crap, but you can reject all of it. Maybe I do it enough I have the habit and I underestimate how hard it is to choose what you actually want. I guess that's the equivalent to having a working Windows 98 key memorized in the early 2000s.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Can confirm. I have never had W10P bug me about OneDrive. I don't have, nor will I ever have an account for microshit. Local user only. All files stored locally and have never been promoted to do otherwise.

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The login is now unskippable and part of the OS setup.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No, you're thinking about the Microsoft Account login (which still has workarounds but whatever). OneDrive needs to have its own separate login, in case you, like me, have a separate account for work or need to have multiple One Drive accounts or if you have paid One Drive, 365 and whatnot.

So you can absolutely log in to Windows with a MS account and log in to One Drive with your work account... or not log in at all and just not have it running, which is what I do.

I have installed Win11 on a new computer build this year. I promise I'm looking at my system tray and there is zero One Drive icons on it. No One Drive folder in my Windows file explorer, either.

[–] PillowTalk420@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I really doubt you do not have a OneDrive folder at all, since the default My Documents location is

C:\users\<user>\OneDrive\MyDocuments

Regardless. Even if you completely skip the OneDrive shit at install.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 days ago

Sorry, but no. My current path is

C:\Users\<user>\Documents

I literally just navigated to my documents folder in a explorer window and copy pasted the path here. I swear I'm not making this up.

I'm pretty sure that these days syncing your documents folder with OneDrive is two separate opt-ins: one to log in to OneDrive at all and one to select whether to sync your libraries.

I am not going to set up a VM just to check this, but I have multiple Windows machines in operation on Win10 and Win11 at home right now and none of them are syncing my libraries. That ranges from five year old Win10 installs to Win11 installs as recent as a couple of months ago.

For the record, I don't think you're crazy either. There's definitely something baked into the install we're doing differently or some version difference or whatever. It's surprisingly hard to suss this out at this point, since there's a fairly complex set of could-backed choices, first time setup choices and maybe even regional changes, I'm not sure. The one interesting, kinda shocking takeaway is how differently our machines can be set up based on probably some checkmark we each set up differently once ages ago or whatever the hell this is.

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Well I've never purposely logged into One Drive but my "Documents" and "Pictures" folders' paths have been inside of an One Drive folder every time since at least win10.

The last time I installed win11 one of the very first things I did was move all the default libraries out of one drive.

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

During setup before answering any pointless questions by microsoft press press Shift + F10 and type

Start ms-cxh:localonly

Enjoy your offline account.

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 1 points 2 days ago

I've already given up on windows by now, but I've heard that trick no longer works.

[–] mdd@lemm.ee 1 points 2 days ago

I managed to kill it on my home PC years ago.