This is getting ridiculous. Just because OneDrive is pre-installed does not mean you are forced to use it or are blocked from using an alternative service.
What's next, calculator apps lobbying for Microsoft to be banned from shipping a calculator with Windows? Drawing apps lobbying for Paint to be banned? Windows shouldn't be allowed to ship with decompression support so WinZip can compete?
Can we not recognize there are legitimate reasons to bundle helpful utilities with an operating system and that banning OS manufacturers from including them might actually lead to a worse experience for most users?
I presume you have limited experience with windows 10. Windows 10 almost forces you to save on one drive. One drive is the default. To save on local disk you have to select local computer, then your drive. (3 clicks away).
I use Windows 10 all the time. OneDrive is installed but I am not logged into it because I don't use it.
My Windows save file dialog defaults to the Downloads folder. OneDrive is listed as an option (along with Dropbox which I do use) but I basically never notice it so I am not entirely sure what you are referring to.
I saw this for the first time on my parents’ Mac computers, where Microsoft Word’s weird save dialog shows OneDrive first and has a button for choosing a location on the local file system.
Meanwhile my Windows desktop does not have behavior like this in the apps I use, mostly web browsers and Discord. I don’t believe I installed or uninstalled onedrive. Maybe I disabled some easy to find settings in Windows for the very annoying bits.
I had to collaborate with an external client who worked heavily in Office, so I installed office on my mac, asked IT for a license, and signed in with my personal account in the meantime.
A couple of months later I open the Office web UI on my home PC to add a family member and find a bunch of the documents I had worked on had ended up saved there somehow.
Fortunately none of it was particularly sensitive. Some stuff I work with we would have to report to a regulator if this happened.
Of course I am familiar with Microsoft's history with IE and perhaps this will be a bit controversial but I believe the EU got this one partially wrong. They could have simply forced Microsoft to allow IE to be uninstalled without also forcing them to ship a version of Windows without a browser altogether.
After all, if you're okay with banning IE and OneDrive from being pre-installed where does the slippery slope end? What stops the exact same argument from being applied to every single other application that ships with an operating system? Now you've banned solitaire, paint, file explorer, media player, photo viewer, pdf viewer, disk defragger, etc. etc. and created a crippled operating system that forces the user to hunt down and install all these third-party applications to get functionality that should have been included in the first place.
Is the end user really better off under such a scenario? Not in my opinion.
Should have to convince a judge that bundling the particular application is causing a distorting effect on the market. The complainants might have a case for OneDrive, but seems much more unlikely the video game industry would have a case for solitaire.
> but seems much more unlikely the video game industry would have a case for solitaire.
Based on what? It seems entirely plausible that the developer of a solitaire game could make the exact same argument that Microsoft shipping a free version of solitaire with Windows makes it impossible to complete against them, and therefore (under the same logic applied to OneDrive) solitaire should be banned from Windows in order to ensure a "level playing field".
Good point although it’s more convincing me that maybe more of the seemingly trivial applications should be unbundled. I was imagining since consumers buy multiple games and games developers typically produce multiple games the overall effect on the games market would be more limited so at some point it’s not worth taking it to court.
I think that the network effect / ecosystem considerations are the meaningful discriminator here.
MS didn't create and ship IE as a freebie gift to its customers; it did it in order to gain a foothold into the burgeoning Internet service market. Likewise with office products and cloud storage, having all Windows users automatically use .doc files and OneDrive accounts puts them in a dominant position to sell other connected products.
A Windows user who plays solitaire is just playing solitaire. If he would like to play a better third party solitaire instead, the fact that 99.99% of Windows users are playing the default version doesn't affect him in the slightest. But a Netscape-browsing, StarOffice-typing, Nextcloud-uploading Windows user will find himself constantly annoyed in a world where every website is Best Viewed in IE, ships heavily customized Word documents, and shares OneDrive links with each other.
If Solitaire were a MMO, I think Windows giving every user a free basic Solitaire account would not be OK.
> Now you've banned solitaire, paint, file explorer, media player, photo viewer, pdf viewer, disk defragger, etc. etc.
Good?, I would like to see a bare bones windows version that I can just use for games that work only on windows. Right now all I see is added bloat/spyware with no way to disable it as such I'm not using it.
If other people want the 'complete' version - just buy the complete version.
That's personal preference, I don't see something wrong with your slippery slope.
Still, the main argument is Microsoft using their market dominance/operating system control to destroy alternatives which is the case here and was the case with internet explorer and office. It's nice to have operating system provide custom APIs just for your applications while closing competitors out.
Sorry but shipping a crippled operating system at the expense of 99% of users that don't want to dig around and install two dozen utilities to make their computer usable is not good.
If you want to argue that anything pre-installed should be removable, that's fine, I agree with that. But arguing that an operating system shouldn't be allowed to pre-bundle basic utilities to play videos, view photos, and unzip files is completely absurd.
If they can ship bare operating systems and bundled versions, as the purchaser requests, it would be useful to many people and for many use cases. I would be more interested in a bare bones Windows personally/professionally.
Whether it created a wider market for the basic apps I don't know. But it wouldn't hurt it.
I don't know where the line should be drawn, but giving purchasers the choice seems like a good principle to apply wherever it is drawn.
OneDrive isn't just pre-installed, it's somewhat (aggressively, even?) marketed from within Windows. For example, even if you aren't using OneDrive you cannot remove or hide the OneDrive icons in the Explorer folder tree (not without registry tweaks).
I just attempted to verify your claim but instead found that I could easily uninstall OneDrive from Windows Settings -> Apps. Now it is completely gone and does not show up in Explorer at all.
Do you have the “Show all folders” navigation sidebar option enabled? Can you share a screenshot? Do you have an MSA associated with your Windows user-account (even if you’re using a Local or Domain login)? I’m genuinely curious.
They have a point. We used to use Hipchat until Atlassian retired it. We took a good look at Slack, negotiating over the price. In the end the decision was made to use Teams as we were already paying for Office, so effectively it was free. It's very difficult to argue against a value proposition like that.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 83.5 ms ] threadWhat's next, calculator apps lobbying for Microsoft to be banned from shipping a calculator with Windows? Drawing apps lobbying for Paint to be banned? Windows shouldn't be allowed to ship with decompression support so WinZip can compete?
Can we not recognize there are legitimate reasons to bundle helpful utilities with an operating system and that banning OS manufacturers from including them might actually lead to a worse experience for most users?
My Windows save file dialog defaults to the Downloads folder. OneDrive is listed as an option (along with Dropbox which I do use) but I basically never notice it so I am not entirely sure what you are referring to.
Meanwhile my Windows desktop does not have behavior like this in the apps I use, mostly web browsers and Discord. I don’t believe I installed or uninstalled onedrive. Maybe I disabled some easy to find settings in Windows for the very annoying bits.
A couple of months later I open the Office web UI on my home PC to add a family member and find a bunch of the documents I had worked on had ended up saved there somehow.
Fortunately none of it was particularly sensitive. Some stuff I work with we would have to report to a regulator if this happened.
After all, if you're okay with banning IE and OneDrive from being pre-installed where does the slippery slope end? What stops the exact same argument from being applied to every single other application that ships with an operating system? Now you've banned solitaire, paint, file explorer, media player, photo viewer, pdf viewer, disk defragger, etc. etc. and created a crippled operating system that forces the user to hunt down and install all these third-party applications to get functionality that should have been included in the first place.
Is the end user really better off under such a scenario? Not in my opinion.
Should have to convince a judge that bundling the particular application is causing a distorting effect on the market. The complainants might have a case for OneDrive, but seems much more unlikely the video game industry would have a case for solitaire.
Based on what? It seems entirely plausible that the developer of a solitaire game could make the exact same argument that Microsoft shipping a free version of solitaire with Windows makes it impossible to complete against them, and therefore (under the same logic applied to OneDrive) solitaire should be banned from Windows in order to ensure a "level playing field".
Like stable APIs for file sync, calendars, contacts, gaming, common hardware, etc.
MS didn't create and ship IE as a freebie gift to its customers; it did it in order to gain a foothold into the burgeoning Internet service market. Likewise with office products and cloud storage, having all Windows users automatically use .doc files and OneDrive accounts puts them in a dominant position to sell other connected products.
A Windows user who plays solitaire is just playing solitaire. If he would like to play a better third party solitaire instead, the fact that 99.99% of Windows users are playing the default version doesn't affect him in the slightest. But a Netscape-browsing, StarOffice-typing, Nextcloud-uploading Windows user will find himself constantly annoyed in a world where every website is Best Viewed in IE, ships heavily customized Word documents, and shares OneDrive links with each other.
If Solitaire were a MMO, I think Windows giving every user a free basic Solitaire account would not be OK.
Good?, I would like to see a bare bones windows version that I can just use for games that work only on windows. Right now all I see is added bloat/spyware with no way to disable it as such I'm not using it.
If other people want the 'complete' version - just buy the complete version.
That's personal preference, I don't see something wrong with your slippery slope.
Still, the main argument is Microsoft using their market dominance/operating system control to destroy alternatives which is the case here and was the case with internet explorer and office. It's nice to have operating system provide custom APIs just for your applications while closing competitors out.
If you want to argue that anything pre-installed should be removable, that's fine, I agree with that. But arguing that an operating system shouldn't be allowed to pre-bundle basic utilities to play videos, view photos, and unzip files is completely absurd.
Whether it created a wider market for the basic apps I don't know. But it wouldn't hurt it.
I don't know where the line should be drawn, but giving purchasers the choice seems like a good principle to apply wherever it is drawn.
OneDrive isn't just pre-installed, it's somewhat (aggressively, even?) marketed from within Windows. For example, even if you aren't using OneDrive you cannot remove or hide the OneDrive icons in the Explorer folder tree (not without registry tweaks).
Also yes I login to my machine with an MS account because my license is a digital one attached to it.
In fact I see no mentions to OneDrive at all..I must have uninstalled it or removed it somehow shrug
Which would be a nice uncontroversial feature: "choose your default sync service"