How To Fix OneDrive’s Bad Behavior in Windows 11 (Premium)

OneDrive has put me in a bad spot in recent months. I use it and rely on it, especially in Windows, where its file system integration features make it a no-brainer. But it's also gotten worse---has gradually enshittified---with each passing Windows 11 version. And it appears that in the newest version, Windows 11 version 23H2, it's going to get even worse.

It's one thing to complain, but for now, I'd like to simply solve the problems. What can we do to work around---or better yet, solve---OneDrive's bad behaviors?

The good news is that it's possible. The bad news is that we may still need to monitor OneDrive in Windows 11 from time to time, unless of course we choose the nuclear option and opt for a different cloud storage service that offers Windows file system integration, like Apple iCloud, Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive, or, oddly, a Microsoft 365 commercial account. Given my history with OneDrive, I'd rather not go down that path. But I'm also experimenting now just in case.

Anyway, let's step through the issues. They are …
Microsoft requires you to use a Microsoft account to sign into Windows 11
The first issue, sort of, is that Microsoft requires you to sign in with a Microsoft account (MSA) when you install Windows 11 Home and Pro now. There are various workarounds for that---please reference the Clean Install and Local Accounts chapters in the Windows 11 Field Guide for various methods---but most people are better off using an MSA sign-in. I certainly am, and I do. So most of us will need to work within this system.
Microsoft automatically enables OneDrive Folder Backup during Windows Setup
Given that, the real first issue is that Microsoft enables OneDrive Folder Backup---which redirects your user account's Desktop, Document, and Pictures folders to locations in OneDrive, keeping them in sync with the cloud---during Windows Setup (and right after you sign into your MSA). It does this with Windows 11 Home and, increasingly, with Windows 11 Pro, though in the latter case you will often see a choice to enable/disable this feature.

To be clear, there is a case to be made for Folder Backup, especially for those mainstream users who only use a single PC and will later restore from a backup if they replace or reset that PC. But Folder Backup isn't just one of many ways in which we might achieve the resiliency and reliability of keeping our most important files synced to some cloud storage service, it's the dumbest way.

And as such, it is only appropriate for the most non-technical of users. The rest of us---people reading this site, for example---can do better. That is, we can make cloud storage work for us instead of conforming to Microsoft's simplistic and non-scalable system. (What's non-scalable? In this case, it's anyone who uses two or more PCs.) I outline my current system in Don’t Be a Statistic (Premium), but we're going to look at that topic a bit more in a moment.

For now, let's work around it. If you don...