head in the clouds

[bicolormoth]

hi all. i am not at all familiar with 'the cloud' i know it is there and some of my files go there but i tend to just ignore it rather than try to figure it out.. however, my Dad has replaced his old knackered (HDD fail) PC and is on a windows re-install. he couldn't find a bunch of documents (xl files) and i eventually found them on his cloud. he really wants them on his hard drive and despite my best efforts to drag them back from the cloud i just cannot make it work. i did manage to ''sync' the files and the icons do show that ''this file is available on this computer'' (or similar words) but they actually are still not on the hard drive but remain on the cloud. my Dad is 82 and could do without the kerfuffle of connecting to the cloud to access these files. can anyone advise me of the best way to get them back to his hard drive. the files were made with Office 365 as far as i can tell.

 

[Sinbad2000]

I imagine you need to install the onedrive app and sync it up.

 

[bicolormoth]

I imagine you need to install the onedrive app and sync it up.

yes i have done that. when i follow the link that says ''make a copy of this file to your computer'' (or similar) it doesn't actually do that, instead it shows a copy in the 'downloads' section of the 'C-drive' in 'File Explorer' but still has the 'e' icon and you still have to go to the cloud to view the file.

 

[Sinbad2000]

yes i have done that. when i follow the link that says ''make a copy of this file to your computer'' (or similar) it doesn't actually do that, instead it shows a copy in the 'downloads' section of the 'C-drive' in 'File Explorer' but still has the 'e' icon and you still have to go to the cloud to view the file.

Choose which OneDrive folders to sync to your computer - Microsoft Support

Learn how to choose which OneDrive files and folders you want to sync to your computer.

support.microsoft.com

 

[bicolormoth]

Choose which OneDrive folders to sync to your computer - Microsoft Support

Learn how to choose which OneDrive files and folders you want to sync to your computer.

support.microsoft.com

this didn't really fix it. but it did show me options that i wanted to use but couldn't. in 'file explorer' the listed xslx files are set to 'open with' Internet Explorer, when i try to open them it just shows the file name in a small text box up in the top r/h corner of the screen, and the file will not open even though there is a 'open file' link. so i tried to change the 'open with' option to MS Office 365 but it would not even find it as an option in search. next i downloaded a free version of ''Trio Office'' which is compatible with MS Office. i have now managed to select Open Office in the 'open with' option, so now i can open the xslx files directly from File Explorer without all the rigmorole of logging into the Onedrive cloud, which was very confusing for my Dad, he is 82. bless him.
This seems to be an acceptable workaround so i will see if my Dad can get his head around it. thanks for advice & pointers.

 

[Mujja]

It sound like you were missing the Excel application.

He should keep files synced to the cloud, already saved me from one HDD failure.