Microsoft is now offering a preview of the 64-bit version of OneDrive for Windows for anyone who wishes to test this long-overdue update.
“We know this has been a long-awaited and highly requested feature, and we’re thrilled to make it available for early access,” Microsoft’s Ankita Kirti writes. “You can now download the 64-bit version for use with OneDrive work, school, and home accounts.”
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That download is available on the Microsoft website, of course.
So what does 64-bits get you over the current 32-bit version? According to Microsoft, it’s useful for anyone who needs to access large files since 64-bit versions of Windows—and now OneDrive—can access more system resources than 32-bit versions.
The 64-bit version of OneDrive does require a 64-bit version of Windows, of course, but it doesn’t work, at least for now, on Windows 10 on ARM. I assume that you will automatically get the right version, 32-bit or 64-bit, in the future.
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<blockquote><em><a href="#622161">In reply to Winner:</a></em></blockquote><p>You never miss a chance do you to moan about the old icons in Windows.</p><p><br></p><p>Can you actually outline where in the UI you are seeing them on such a regular basis it causes you such irritation?</p>
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<blockquote><em><a href="#622188">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p><em>"As for File Explorer's Drive Properties dialog, should it look radically different?"</em></p><p><br></p><p>Agreed. Even if you download the new "Files" app from the Microsoft Store and do the Properties of a drive it brings up a modern dialog… but they've re-created the old style exactly!</p><p><br></p><p><em>"On my Insider build system, the "System" and "Taskbar and Navigation" items in Control Panel […] launch Settings"</em></p><p><br></p><p>This is true right-now of 20H2 stable: both of them just take you into Settings. Why Microsoft doesn't remove the launch-points from them from <em>Control Panel </em>I've no-idea.</p><p><br></p><p><em>"[Fonts in] Control Panel […] allows for uninstalling multiple fonts in a single operation; with Settings it's one at a time …"</em></p><p><br></p><p>Do you have a frequent need to remove fonts? If so, and you know the filenames of each font you want removing, you could use a simple batch-file to delete them from %windir%fonts. (Though bear-in-mind if it is a system-font, SFC /SCANNOW might restore them if you ever run it).</p><p><br></p><p><em>Credential Manager migration</em></p><p><br></p><p>Yeah, it does confuse me why Control Panels that were new in either Vista or 7 haven't been migrated already. There can't be any legacy hook-ins, like with the old <em>Keyboard </em>and <em>Mouse </em>as I don't think the new-style ones ever allowed that. So makes no-sense to me why these haven't all been done by now.</p>
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<blockquote><em><a href="#622176">In reply to Winner:</a></em></blockquote><p>I don't know about you but I don't spend most of my life on Windows inside <em>Device Manager, </em>the old <em>Keyboard </em>or <em>Mouse </em>Control-Panel applets, or viewing the <em>Properties </em>of a drive. But if people want Windows to continue to provide backwards-compatibility then that means a lot of old stuff has to exist. There are loads of old laptop touchpad drivers that add extra tabs into the <em>Mouse </em>applet; they'd break if this were gone, or the user would have no-way to adjust those extra settings. Some old accessibility apps hook into <em>Keyboard </em>and <em>Mouse </em>too.</p><p><br></p><p>As for things like <em>Device Manager</em>, the MMC consoles are an advanced area — ideally Microsoft would like users to never have to ever use it, as all drivers should get auto-installed by <em>Windows Update</em>. And indeed, for many devices, the vast-majority now do. But it would also be difficult to see how they could integrate such things into the new <em>Settings </em>app — how would you suggest adding a complex MMC like "Active Directory Users & Groups" for example, bearing-in-mind settings is a single-instance app: you can't have two windows of it open. That would get annoying fast for power-users.</p><p><br></p><p>Also, on the telemetry point: it still confuses me totally how people maintain two polar-opposite opinions at once: (1) Microsoft should get-rid of all the telemetry from Windows; and at the same time (2) Microsoft should remove all the legacy crap that no-one is using. So… without the telemetry, how do you expect them to know what is and isn't used?</p><p><br></p><p>Anyway, as for icons specifically: it depends what you class as "old". If you think every UI icon should be the new UWP style (as seen in <em>Settings </em>and the settings for the new <em>Microsoft Edge</em>) then, sure, there are hundreds of old icons. For me, personally, I'm fine with Vista and 7 era icons in 10; XP or older is what I'd call "old". And there isn't many areas you'll still find them: the "Speech Properties" applet still has a few 16-colour icons, as does Internet Explorer's settings if you do the "Custom level" for a zone; but even then, only for one group. Within the main UI — you know, the bits the vast-majority of everyday users actually use — I never see any icon older than Vista/7 era.</p><p><br></p><p>And users complaining about icons isn't unique to Windows. It took me seconds to do a Google search to find articles titled "MacOS Big Sur is here – but users aren't loving its icons", "Consistent But Controversial: All The New Icons In macOS Big", "Are Apple's MacOS Big Sur icons really that bad?" and "MacOS 11 Big Sur Icons Good or Bad?". And if you also consider forum posts, such as Reddit, there are many, many more complaining and asking if there are third-party tools you can use to change them to different ones.</p><p><br></p><p>As for having a different opinion, yes, I will do thanks… I'd rather see Microsoft add new features, such as a screen-recorder, improve the built-in apps and work on making <em>Edge </em>as good as possible before worrying about some old icons most users will never see. I mean, it's ironic you bring-up the <em>Exchange </em>security-issue, and chastise them for not acting faster when at the same time you're like "guys, drop everything, we have icons and old UIs that need updating"! And you do realise that not every person who works for Microsoft is a coder and so when they release new features for <em>Edge </em>and stuff it's not like that person has been taken-away from working on security issues to do that?</p>
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<blockquote><em><a href="#622203">In reply to hbko:</a></em></blockquote><p><em>"Why are there still app installation wizards in 2021?"</em></p><p><br></p><p>There aren't on macOS: you just drag the installer over the <em>Apps </em>folder, nor on most Linux distros: you use a <em>package-manager</em> or install from the command-line (e.g. sudo apt-get install microsoft-edge-insider). But surprise! If you download an app from the early 2000s then expect to get an installer that looks like it was from that era.</p><p><br></p><p>Sure, I guess Microsoft could "hack into" the installer, extract the script and then try to recreate the installer inside a modern UI… but (1) there may be legal or licencing issues around that; (2) if anything went wrong with the install, they'd take the blame and (3) it's a lot of effort to go to just to please people who want to run software from 20 years ago.</p><p><br></p><p>I mean, the same people who moan about stuff like this are also the same people who are all "oh no, Microsoft must never stop offering the 32-bit versions of Windows… we have [insert industry-specific piece of kit here] which only has a 32-bit driver, and it links to a [insert name of product here] database system, which is a 16-bit app".</p><p><br></p><p>Like seriously people: you want Windows to modernise, but also still run your 16-bit apps, 32-bit drivers and still (for the 32-bit versions, at-least) run on computers from the XP era.</p><p><br></p><p>Is it any-wonder macOS can modernise faster when they simply say "yeah, we're moving to this new CPU we've made called the M1… you'll need to recompile your apps as Rosetta 2 will only exists for the next 2, maybe 3, major macOS releases until it'll be gone and users can't run any of your apps anymore, like how we banned all 32-bit apps a few years ago from the App Store for iOS and iPadOS devices. Don't like it? Tough. Thanks, get on with it…"</p>