Giving In? (Premium)

When I returned from Mexico last month, I had a backlog of review laptops to catch up on (I still do). In the course of configuring each in turn, I ran into an all-too familiar issue, which wasn't surprising, apart from the odd coincidence of seeing it happen repeatedly, and almost simultaneously on each laptop. I would decline Windows 11's offer to "backup" my Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to OneDrive during Setup, but in each case, it would later ignore that decision and simply enable the feature.

This is annoying in the best of circumstances, and it was the trigger for me moving to Google Drive and then, more recently, to Synology Drive, for my day-to-day file sync needs. But when it happens repeatedly at roughly the same time on multiple PCs, and with such consistency, it's even worse. Normally, I just revert the configuration to be what I want--I typically don't use OneDrive Folder backup at all--and then delete the lame shortcuts that appear when I do this. But this time, I decided to experiment with something I'd be thinking about for months.

What if I just ... left it alone?

In other words, what would happen if I simply gave in to Microsoft's predatory behavior, as I'm sure so many do, assuming they even understand what's happening? Would this really be so bad? What if I--gulp--ended up seeing a benefit to this configuration that Microsoft is so eager to have me and many millions of othersd use?

Indeed. What if?

Well, it's been over a month. I've received more review laptops since I started this, and I have seen this same behavior on every one of them, as I always do. I have experienced Microsoft's preferred configuration now on almost every PC I've used over that time. And I have learned something. Or, maybe the better way to put it is that I've verified something I already knew. Two somethings.

First, and I need to be clearer about this, OneDrive Folder backup is a great feature, at least in theory. It's arguably the right choice for most users, and certainly most mainstream, non-technical users. But there are caveats. The most obvious being that it should literally be a choice. I wish that Microsoft could communicate the benefits of enabling this feature in such a way that most mainstream users would understand them and agree to use it. Assuming that's what they want.

Second, I was right all along. The caveat there is that I should really write that as, I was right along ... but especially for me. I don't personally need or want OneDrive Folder backup. I prefer my PCs to be configured to not use this feature. And here, too, to be clear, that would be true if I were simply using OneDrive all the time for my day-to-day file sync needs, as part of my workflow.

But this isn't entirely about me. OneDrive Folder backup and Windows 11 are deeply flawed in ways that make this functionality less than optimal even for those who do use it, knowingly or not. Some of this is historical, and tied to the way...