The Enshittification of OneDrive Escalates Yet Again, But Help is On the Way (Premium)

Freaked out by the rapidly escalating enshittification of OneDrive in Windows 11, I’ve done what I can do. I’ve explained the new problem. I’ve explained what you can do to work around that and previous problems, when possible, though truly fixing them is not truly possible today. And I’ve written about the scary changes I made to my own OneDrive to help me cope with these new challenges.

And I’m sure some of you may think that I’m exaggerating this issue, though my reply there is simple enough: Wait until you encounter Windows 11 version 23H2, which is where things really go off the rails. Microsoft’s aggressive marketing of its own products and services in Windows has been bad enough to date, but as I noted, this is escalating again in 23H2. And, worse, Microsoft is silently enabling OneDrive’s Folder Backup feature behind our backs, which I do not want, on PCs in which I have explicitly disabled it. That’s not just insidious, it’s malicious.

But as per my original slippery slope argument from the naïve days of Windows 8—literally over a decade ago—in which the only ads in Windows were hidden away in modern apps few people even used, things can always get worse and they usually do. And I am sad to report that in the two and a half weeks since I first raised the alarm on OneDrive in 23H2, it has gotten even worse.

I know. It seems impossible.

As noted, Windows 11 version 23H2 introduces several horrible new OneDrive behaviors, among them a Microsoft Edge-like behavior in which Microsoft ignores the user’s explicit choices, in this case by quietly enabling Folder Backup when the user said no to this feature during Windows Setup and/or opened OneDrive settings and turned it off. It does this without any messaging or communication, and while it’s unclear what triggers this, I had seen this behavior on three PCs when I first wrote about it.

And now, because of all the work I’m doing for the Windows 11 Field Guide update, I’ve seen it on many more PCs/VMs across multiple installs. It’s real, and it’s bad, and I’d like to find a permanent solution that doesn’t involve just not using OneDrive.

But aside from verifying this behavior, a new related annoyance has popped up. And here, again, Microsoft is following the same strategy it employs with the Edge browser: When the user tries to switch, it puts up some blockers and tries to get you to stay. You’ve seen this when you try to change a file or link type association in the Settings app, where it pops up an “Are you sure?” roadblock in a last-ditch effort to keep you on Edge.

Well, here’s how it works in OneDrive now. This is a new behavior that’s gone live in the last week or so, and I have seen it in both 22H2 and 23H2 in the Release Preview ring: You notice that OneDrive has silently enabled Folder Backup against your wishes and so you open OneDrive settings to turn it back off. And you navigate to Sync and backup > Manage backup to display the Backup folders on this PC window, where you can view the status of Folder Backup for the five possible folders. In the latest OneDrive version, it looks like so (without Folder Backup enabled):

If Folder Backup was quietly enabled, the top three folders— Documents, Pictures, and Desktop, delightfully listed non-alphabetically—will be set to On and the other two folders, Music and Videos, will be set to Off. When you don’t want this feature, the course of action is obvious enough: Switch Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folder backup to Off, click Close, and get on with your life.

Except for one thing. This is no longer possible.

When you click “Off” next to the first folder, OneDrive will do one of two things, depending on whether there are files in that folder. If there aren’t, it will simply prompt you to confirm your choice.

If there are, it will give you the option to decide where to keep the files it contains, since you’re about to turn off folder backup. (Previous to this, it would just put a shortcut on the local version of the folder so you could go find those files.) You have three choices:

What you want, since you’re doing this, is likely to move the files to where they belong, the local (non-OneDrive) version of that folder. So you choose that and click Continue.

Done, right? I mean, it’s just one additional step.

Nope. Next, it explains that it did what you asked it to do. This is OK, I guess. Except that it’s unnecessary, in part because it shouldn’t have enabled this feature in the first place. But whatever. It’s some clarity at least. Two additional steps. But some clarity.

Done, right?  Two extra steps are not great, but we can get through this.

Nope. Next, it’s looking for feedback. Microsoft would like to know why on earth you disabled this wonderful feature that it provided against your will. Ironic. But also three extra steps. So you fill out this form or you don’t—more on this below—and then close the window either way.

Maybe you’re OK with that. But it’s not just three extra steps. It’s nine extra steps because you will have to go through those steps for each of the three folders. It doesn’t care that you provided feedback once. It will just keep asking.

Sigh.

(Worse, it will likely silently reenable Folder Backup again because it’s just that insidious and malicious. In my experience—which, granted, may not reflect the final, shipping version of 23H2, we’ll see—this just keeps happening. Again and again.)

But we’re not done.

As soon as you disable Folder Backup on just one folder, OneDrive takes two additional steps. (So you have 11 things to deal with in total. 11.)

First, it puts a blue bang on its system tray icon, and when you click it, the OneDrive app tells you that you can “optimize your work” with OneDrive, by which it means enable Folder Backup, a feature you just turned off.

And then, it pops up a banner notification telling you to “learn how to protect your files,” by which it means, wait for, enable Folder Backup! A feature you just turned off.

Oh, do f$%k off.

11 steps to disable a feature you explicitly denied or explicitly disabled yourself. 11.

So here’s the caveat, the pretty little flower in this pile of dung: Microsoft is at least asking for feedback: It’s possible and even likely that I am not the only voice out there complaining about this behavior and that it is at least considering doing the right thing. And so that feedback form in step three should be taken seriously: If you are disabling Folder Backup and see this, I am begging you to fill out the form and provide optional feedback in the form of a tersely worded condemnation of this behavior. Please. This is how we can make a difference.

And now I have two bits of insider information that I think you will all find interesting. It concerns OneDrive explicitly but also Windows 11 in general, and it comes from people within the iron curtain of Microsoft whom I’ve known for years and trust explicitly.

One of the tough things about my job and dealing with Microsoft is that it’s often impossible to know why it does things. We can discuss what happened. And we can often discuss how to fix things when possible. But when it comes to why, we can often just speculate.

And while that speculation generally involves educated guesses based on previous information, it often doesn’t pan out: Microsoft’s surprise decision to defang 23H2 and ship its key features before that version upgrade was unexpected, and it was only later, via someone else’s insider sources, that we learned that it was tied to Microsoft forcing these new features, especially the AI features like Copilot, on its customers: Had it waited until 23H2 per the usual schedule, many customers would have simply skipped the upgrade. This way, they cannot. Everyone’s getting Copilot and the other new features, whether they want them or not.

What my sources added to this information is that these things—the escalating enshittification of OneDrive and the forced adoption of Copilot and other new features—are intertwined. For Copilot to work fully in Windows 11 as a feature for individuals that can sort of rival what Microsoft is doing for businesses in Microsoft 365, it has to have some personal data to work off of. That is, in Microsoft 365, Microsoft can use the data from Microsoft Graph to provide a knowledge base of company-wide information that can inform Copilot and thus users. But there’s nothing like that for consumers.

But there can be, sort of: Getting the personal data in those three folders tied into the OneDrive backend provides the closest possible functionality for individuals. It’s like a mini-Microsoft Graph for consumers. This is why Microsoft is pushing OneDrive so hard in 23H2, and not just via the forced Folder Backup stuff. (The annoying “Start backup” badge in folders that can be backed up is another example.) It’s all about AI. If users reject Copilot out of hand this year, during this big push, they may never even try it again. And then it will be just like Cortana, where everyone disables or ignores it. Albeit with a much bigger Microsoft investment at risk.

(Think about it. Without that data, Copilot in Windows is just Bing Chat plus a small and lame selection of Windows settings changes. It’s laughable and unnecessary.)

So that’s the why. But here’s that small glimmer of hope I promised.

Because this behavior is unacceptable to all but the smallest and least sophisticated businesses, Microsoft also knows that it cannot foist it on its most important customers in the enterprise. And so it will introduce one or more Group Policies by which they can disable it all. All that horrible behavior I’ve been complaining about will be disabled with the literal flick of the switch. And that means that we, as individuals, will be able to disable this too, either via Local Group Policy (Windows 11 Pro only) or, more broadly, via the Registry. So there will be tips about doing that, registry scripts that automate it, and third-party apps that will provide GUI-based automation. We are going to solve this problem, eventually.

So that’s good news. And while I’m sure Microsoft will never document these fixes for individuals, we’ll find out. Sites like mine will promote it. And those who care can return to a sense of normalcy and get on with their lives.

Eventually. But until this happens, we suffer.