OneDrive is worse?

Jarrastafari · 11 Aug 2015 at 11:11

So I was having loads of problems yesterday understanding why the OneDrive was downloading all of my existing content I had and I struggled with someone at MS support who failed to explain the new setup for OneDrive.

I have since read today that they basically have removed the power user features, which means no more pausing sync from the system tray icon and most importantly no more offline-only/online-online file settings! I found that this is the 14th most requested user feature but is looking to be ignored because - excuse the term - dumb users get too confused by the place-holder files and someone with 100's of GB's data can end up with 10's of GB's of place-holders.

I don't see why they didn't consider a middle-ground before cutting their most distinctive and in my opinion, most valuable feature. Has anyone heard if they're going to add this soon or if their just going to march forward with their new plan?

meandu229 · 11 Aug 2015 at 11:19

Its annoyed me too because they also removed the onedrive app. I have all my photos on onedrive and like to flick through them now and then and sort/tag them but I cant see a good way to do this anymore.

Jarrastafari · 11 Aug 2015 at 11:49

For those curious there was an article posted on how to get a work-around for the time being. Some of the user comments mention that it's not as good as the place holders and acts more like a mapped drive, which has it's limits and acts more like a slow FTP.

A regretfully sad roll-back to Windows 8.1 is going to happen today I feel!

Glaucus · 11 Aug 2015 at 12:10

It's nothing to do with dumb users, it's because it's breaking programs/apps.
Although I don't understand why they can't be coded to understand online/offline files.

Hopefully it'll get updated and added back in, in one if the future upgrades.

In the meantime everyone needs to up vote it.
Go to Cortana, type in feedback, launch windows feedback, go to files, folders and online storage, select onedrive and up-vote what should be top result. well actually there's a fair few. Upvote them all.

PhillyDee · 11 Aug 2015 at 12:15

I use onedrive for personal stuff, but its just far too slow at downloading for my business. Manages to saturate my downloads (despite not actually downloading anything?), causing all sorts of issues on my units network, yet Dropbox works with no issues. Onedrive can take days to download data :/. Shame!

Rilot · 11 Aug 2015 at 12:44

I've switched to Odrive. It has the placeholder functionality and you can map the folder to removable storage - something that was also removed in 10 if you don't want to mess about with NTFS mount points.

http://www.odrive.com

hyperseven · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:02

PhillyDee said:
I use onedrive for personal stuff, but its just far too slow at downloading for my business. Manages to saturate my downloads (despite not actually downloading anything?), causing all sorts of issues on my units network, yet Dropbox works with no issues. Onedrive can take days to download data :/. Shame!

Well it is only intended for personal use, that's why they have onedrive business

Sighn · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:09

I'm wondering: if I have a huge amount of data stored in a 1TB Onedrive cloud, what happens if I upgrade my tablet to Windows 10? I'd have to sync selective folders within the storage limit of my tablet.

This would be even more baffling for 'dumb users' than Microsoft's previous Onedrive arrangement.

martin9887 · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:11

I agree, it's certainly taken a step back from Windows 8.1.

I'd like the smart files feature back, and the ability to pause syncing. Another improvement would be getting links to share files without it opening the website to do so.

Skeeter · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:18

This is one of the only issues I have with Windows 10. It means I've have to backtrack on my plan to just put all my documents and photos and videos on OneDrive as it would totally kill my 7" tablet. Which is a major shame as the tablet is ideal for taking places to show people your holiday snaps etc.

Rilot · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:31

Guys, look at Odrive. It works with OneDrive and gives you the functionality you are missing.

Sighn · 11 Aug 2015 at 13:45

Rilot said:
Guys, look at Odrive. It works with OneDrive and gives you the functionality you are missing.

Will definitely check this out, thanks.

Jarrastafari · 11 Aug 2015 at 14:09

I had read about other issues with programs/apps and with sync looping but it hadn't affected me and I had similar programs and file/folder amounts and sizes as the people reporting those problems. I guess removing it while they figure out a fix is easier for them, not having to deal with continuous complaints but, shutting some users out instead of leaving us the option, well...can't please everyone but it sucks when it's you whose left unhappy!

Will try out ∞drive before I downgrade. Really liked the simplicity and integration OneDrive had.

Skeeter · 11 Aug 2015 at 14:12

I'd be cautious about downgrading, are we certain they aren't going to roll this change back across all OneDrive services.

Jarrastafari · 11 Aug 2015 at 14:29

Seems ∞drive (i <3 ∞) is stuck with C: drive installation. While workarounds are available feel I would just be replacing one problem with another and I'm after simplicity, not multiple band-aids to get back where I was. Also, I chose OneDrive to replace the multiple cloud storage solutions I had amassed over the years, so while this would have been great two years back I would rather wait out the year on 8.1 and react to Microsoft's next move.

Skeeter said:
I'd be cautious about downgrading, are we certain they aren't going to roll this change back across all OneDrive services.

True but the feature I use cloud storage for is only available there, even if only for now.

markweatherill · 12 Aug 2015 at 08:33

You can choose which files to sync / not to sync; to me, it's the same as under 8.1 but I wish the default was not to sync anything.

And the Onedrive 'app' seems to be superfluous if you look at the Onedrive website, which has the same if not more functionality.

Skeeter · 12 Aug 2015 at 09:09

Its not the same as 8.1. If you unsync a folder you then can't see that folder, and can't view the files directly from the cloud.

ubersonic · 12 Aug 2015 at 11:42

meandu229 said:
Its annoyed me too because they also removed the onedrive app. I have all my photos on onedrive and like to flick through them now and then and sort/tag them but I cant see a good way to do this anymore.

Use the photos app.

*EDIT*

On nvm, they've ruined the photos app in 10 :rolleyes:

markweatherill · 12 Aug 2015 at 13:23

Skeeter said:
Its not the same as 8.1. If you unsync a folder you then can't see that folder, and can't view the files directly from the cloud.

EDIT: I had not realised this! I thought I was suffering from some profile issue that was making my Onedrive folder appear empty. Well, at least it isn't that.
So, I'll be using the web site to manage my Onedrive files. And I do think this new behaviour is crazy!

Raumarik · 12 Aug 2015 at 13:27

I reinstalled Windows 10 last night, onedrive was syncing my files, 10Gb of them, yet there's less than 5Gb of files!

Getting worse, not better although I can see why it was breaking apps etc. Then again I have Crashplan backing up files/folders and it doesn't seem to.