Which OneDrive? The one in my browser, the one on my desktop, or the wackadoodle half-Sharepoint mongrel I use at work? All of which have decidedly different UIs for the same incredibly simple task, I might add.
Microsoft has been going hard in the direction of making OneDrive intrinsic to Windows, so what even is the "OneDrive experience" in contrast to the Windows 11 experience? Who writes this nonsense?
Are we going the other direction now, divorcing Windows 11 from OneDrive, thereby giving OneDrive a distinct "experience" again? Why wasn't this change in direction announced?
I swear it's like Microsoft is just 30,000 chatbots all bickering with each other in the most sanitized, gramatically faultless English imaginible.
Well there didn't used to be very many degreed Software Engineers before Microsoft itself started needing more than ever, and they weren't the only company, just one of the fastest growing early ones.
Anybody see any correlation to what can now often be considered ghastly legacy code precisely where there should have been some actual engineering when there was none? Because there were not enough engineers to begin with, so the "drastically" urgent business needs were met in other sometimes mysterious ways?
Now there's a shortage of degreed Experience Incubators and there's a long way to go before there are even enough degree programs, much less freshly credentialed graduates.
Welcome to a whole 'nother era of deficiency until professional Incubatists can finally become numerous enough to complete the trend, apparently as intended to replace engineering as the future of tech :\
Some people have such an amazing vision, it's stupefying :)
Why Windows Entreprise PCs have 'Images', 'Videos' and 'Music' folders that can't be deleted is beyond me. If I want to store music on my work PC I can create a folder for that, but why force it on me??
To be fair, a lot of programs rely on those standard directories from the "Known Folders" specification - it would be hard to rip them out without breaking a lot of software. Even on linux it's hard to get away from these directories, as virtually every distro ships with xdg-user-dirs. Even if you use Arch, you'll probably install xdg-user-dirs with Gnome or KDE which creates those directories on login.
Agree 100%, though those folders on any Windows install are a train wreck. Anyone attempting to curate anything within them are met with an endless torrent of garbage being thrown into them by Microsoft and any other app that might be installed. Anyone who's PC I oversee, I always beg them to create their own "My Docs" folder and fill it on their own terms. The Windows user experience is such a mess and MS quit caring that it was a long time ago.
1. You can move those folders to other locations. I used to do that in the Windows XP days.
2. They are required because applications can ask Windows "what is the 'music' folder" and get back the path. Most of those applications won't expect a missing folder.
Because it's not about you, it's about grandma. And when Microsoft bakes these locations in as standard, they can't be deleted because applications are allowed to depend on them being there.
Good call, but regardless, for decades this has always meant that you need a better IT guy, better software, better Windows devs, a better OS variant, or preferably all of the above.
You can't paint a pretty picture here.
It's not like it's one of the hidden defects, it's been obvious for a while.
Disclaimer: I'm older than lots of grandmas now, about in the Bill Gates generation :\
So you have observed since the MS-DOS days versus Amiga, Atari and co, how the way Microsoft has done OSes hardly mattered for the most folks buying computers, in addition to the business practices.
Oh yes, they were able to deploy a predatory component completely under the radar as soon as they could, because there was already the established habit of buying a home computer for the first time if you were fortunate enough during the early days of MS-DOS, then using or building on it from there, as it is right out of the box. As soon as possible. Without ever thinking about the possibility of changing the OS or its settings very much if at all. Just like the less-business-oriented home computers that came before. If there were even user settings for the OS, people hadn't usually become familiar with that kind of thing anyway.
And everything decent built up from there as much as it can, while declining from there to the maximum degree provided by that structure simultaneously.
Not the ideal foundation to allow an enterprise to rely on, but they were in a hurry, bless their hearts, for fear of other competitive enterprises getting computerized first. It was easily recognizable, since way before Gates was old enough to start Microsoft, I was already just as familiar with the concept of GIGO when I saw it. Except from a business standpoint it was more like watching so many unsuspecting enterprises putting up skyscrapers on the most unsuitably garbaceous landfill for a foundation, which could even be more insidious than more easily recognized garbage input data.
More so than home users, enterprises have always had to settle for a much smaller fraction of the PC hardware capabilities relative to their more extensive needs compared to consumers. The vast majority of the sometimes-rapidly improving performance of hardware over the decades has been completely wasted, and it really adds up. Microsoft has had such a huge hand in this it can not be denied. There is no other way to do the math.
Too many big enterprises act like they can afford to throw away the lion's share of their computing budget (just because a few actually can bear the cost) or they would have started reversing dependency risk as far as necessary a long time ago when it would have been less difficult. It's like there's so much money going out the windows for so long nobody can afford to make a move after that. And consumers still have less of a clue by far.
To quote Microsoft for the umpteenth time, "this is by design."
Except this time it's gotten so ugly the enterprise cost is rising everywhere but Microsoft isn't even getting more money out of it.
Like it's self-reinforcing in some way or another :\
As long as negative value is getting further out-of-control[0] for Windows users across-the-board in spite of their "best" efforts, the pooch remains screwed for all concerned.
[0] Also statistically speaking from a professional quality control perspective.
This is not the worst enterprise failure Microsoft has pushed from inadequate testing in recent memory. Around 2021, the Defender enterprise second tier plan pushed out under-tested defs that considered most desktop and start menu shortcuts to be "malware", and removed them silently. Users by the 100's/1k's freaked out when it looked like their apps were removed, causing nothing short a help desk sev 1 emergency.
It's crazy to me how MS continue to do stuff like this. Ads in the start menu, anti-user UX, spam apps, etc. Every time I think their behavior will change and I am always disappointed.
So it is genuinely crazy that they are still doing things like this.
Edit: I should also add that a migration away from Windows has a huge network effect so its important for them to stop the bleeding to prevent them hemorrhaging users later.
"We are incubating a new photos experience in OneDrive"
MS no longer build apps it seems, but instead incubate experiences...What a comms team.
It sounds like what an AI would say. Perhaps their Copilot has become Pilot.
I'm incubating my experience over on Linux
Which OneDrive? The one in my browser, the one on my desktop, or the wackadoodle half-Sharepoint mongrel I use at work? All of which have decidedly different UIs for the same incredibly simple task, I might add.
Microsoft has been going hard in the direction of making OneDrive intrinsic to Windows, so what even is the "OneDrive experience" in contrast to the Windows 11 experience? Who writes this nonsense?
Are we going the other direction now, divorcing Windows 11 from OneDrive, thereby giving OneDrive a distinct "experience" again? Why wasn't this change in direction announced?
I swear it's like Microsoft is just 30,000 chatbots all bickering with each other in the most sanitized, gramatically faultless English imaginible.
Well there didn't used to be very many degreed Software Engineers before Microsoft itself started needing more than ever, and they weren't the only company, just one of the fastest growing early ones.
Anybody see any correlation to what can now often be considered ghastly legacy code precisely where there should have been some actual engineering when there was none? Because there were not enough engineers to begin with, so the "drastically" urgent business needs were met in other sometimes mysterious ways?
Now there's a shortage of degreed Experience Incubators and there's a long way to go before there are even enough degree programs, much less freshly credentialed graduates.
Welcome to a whole 'nother era of deficiency until professional Incubatists can finally become numerous enough to complete the trend, apparently as intended to replace engineering as the future of tech :\
Some people have such an amazing vision, it's stupefying :)
No-one is in charge of Windows.
Or more specifically, the people in charge of Windows have no clue about anything.
Satya Nadella has trashed Xbox and trashed Windows.
Most knowledgeable devs from Windows glory days have already retired, or were clever and moved into Azure.
Now they get interns that never heard of Petzold and can only do Web, hence the Webview2 all over the place.
Microsoft was always run by an army of warring program managers
Hi folks, have submitted the follow-up news here regarding Microsoft's steps to fix it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259858
They're clearly too busy making security the "highest priority"
Why Windows Entreprise PCs have 'Images', 'Videos' and 'Music' folders that can't be deleted is beyond me. If I want to store music on my work PC I can create a folder for that, but why force it on me??
To be fair, a lot of programs rely on those standard directories from the "Known Folders" specification - it would be hard to rip them out without breaking a lot of software. Even on linux it's hard to get away from these directories, as virtually every distro ships with xdg-user-dirs. Even if you use Arch, you'll probably install xdg-user-dirs with Gnome or KDE which creates those directories on login.
Agree 100%, though those folders on any Windows install are a train wreck. Anyone attempting to curate anything within them are met with an endless torrent of garbage being thrown into them by Microsoft and any other app that might be installed. Anyone who's PC I oversee, I always beg them to create their own "My Docs" folder and fill it on their own terms. The Windows user experience is such a mess and MS quit caring that it was a long time ago.
1. You can move those folders to other locations. I used to do that in the Windows XP days.
2. They are required because applications can ask Windows "what is the 'music' folder" and get back the path. Most of those applications won't expect a missing folder.
Because it's not about you, it's about grandma. And when Microsoft bakes these locations in as standard, they can't be deleted because applications are allowed to depend on them being there.
But grandma doesn't use an Entreprise version now does she?
No, but the IT guy likes to install software that depends on it, because it is very rare that Windows devs only target a specific OS variant.
Good call, but regardless, for decades this has always meant that you need a better IT guy, better software, better Windows devs, a better OS variant, or preferably all of the above.
You can't paint a pretty picture here.
It's not like it's one of the hidden defects, it's been obvious for a while.
Disclaimer: I'm older than lots of grandmas now, about in the Bill Gates generation :\
So you have observed since the MS-DOS days versus Amiga, Atari and co, how the way Microsoft has done OSes hardly mattered for the most folks buying computers, in addition to the business practices.
Oh yes, they were able to deploy a predatory component completely under the radar as soon as they could, because there was already the established habit of buying a home computer for the first time if you were fortunate enough during the early days of MS-DOS, then using or building on it from there, as it is right out of the box. As soon as possible. Without ever thinking about the possibility of changing the OS or its settings very much if at all. Just like the less-business-oriented home computers that came before. If there were even user settings for the OS, people hadn't usually become familiar with that kind of thing anyway.
And everything decent built up from there as much as it can, while declining from there to the maximum degree provided by that structure simultaneously.
Not the ideal foundation to allow an enterprise to rely on, but they were in a hurry, bless their hearts, for fear of other competitive enterprises getting computerized first. It was easily recognizable, since way before Gates was old enough to start Microsoft, I was already just as familiar with the concept of GIGO when I saw it. Except from a business standpoint it was more like watching so many unsuspecting enterprises putting up skyscrapers on the most unsuitably garbaceous landfill for a foundation, which could even be more insidious than more easily recognized garbage input data.
More so than home users, enterprises have always had to settle for a much smaller fraction of the PC hardware capabilities relative to their more extensive needs compared to consumers. The vast majority of the sometimes-rapidly improving performance of hardware over the decades has been completely wasted, and it really adds up. Microsoft has had such a huge hand in this it can not be denied. There is no other way to do the math.
Too many big enterprises act like they can afford to throw away the lion's share of their computing budget (just because a few actually can bear the cost) or they would have started reversing dependency risk as far as necessary a long time ago when it would have been less difficult. It's like there's so much money going out the windows for so long nobody can afford to make a move after that. And consumers still have less of a clue by far.
To quote Microsoft for the umpteenth time, "this is by design."
Except this time it's gotten so ugly the enterprise cost is rising everywhere but Microsoft isn't even getting more money out of it.
Like it's self-reinforcing in some way or another :\
As long as negative value is getting further out-of-control[0] for Windows users across-the-board in spite of their "best" efforts, the pooch remains screwed for all concerned.
[0] Also statistically speaking from a professional quality control perspective.
Grandma has been using a smartphone as her primary computing device for over a decade.
I dearly hope Apple doesn’t fall for this and just lets the Preview app, well, preview files.
Incredible how far macOS and Linux ended up ahead experience wise by doing nothing and just letting apps do their jobs and nothing more.
> by doing nothing and just letting apps do their jobs and nothing more
Like the elaborate fuckups that included:
• destroying iTunes and the ersatz replacement Music/TV apps that no one asked for
• ruining iPhoto and forcing everyone onto Photos
• breaking backwards compatibility 80,000 times, including on their expensive Pro apps
• the Final Cut Pro X debacle
• nearly every change in iOS for the last five years
Butterfly keyboard
We need the year of Enterprise Linux
This is not the worst enterprise failure Microsoft has pushed from inadequate testing in recent memory. Around 2021, the Defender enterprise second tier plan pushed out under-tested defs that considered most desktop and start menu shortcuts to be "malware", and removed them silently. Users by the 100's/1k's freaked out when it looked like their apps were removed, causing nothing short a help desk sev 1 emergency.
Are we certain it's even the worst thing they've done this quarter?
Windows is malware
That's a non-response if I've ever seen one.
It's crazy to me how MS continue to do stuff like this. Ads in the start menu, anti-user UX, spam apps, etc. Every time I think their behavior will change and I am always disappointed.
Why would you think that their behavior will change?
They are actively losing customers to less hostile options (mostly macOS, but also Linux).
They already know it's a problem: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/03/20/our-com...
So it is genuinely crazy that they are still doing things like this.
Edit: I should also add that a migration away from Windows has a huge network effect so its important for them to stop the bleeding to prevent them hemorrhaging users later.
I'm pretty sure that post is about SteamOS, since gaming is one of the only things keeping a substantial portion of the consumer population on Windows
what have you done to migrate to linux, or encourage others to do the same?