Microsoft finally got OneDrive right

Topic

New Reply

In typical Microsoft fashion, the company saw a good idea — online file storing, synching, and sharing — and then took a long time to get it right. Tu
[See the full post at: Microsoft finally got OneDrive right]

1 user thanked author for this post.

abbodi86

Reply | Quote

Replies

How do you get the file display shown in Figure 1?  I’ve tried everything I can think of to get that information and don’t even come close.

Reply | Quote

@walkerdan If you open your Onedrive directory via File Explorer, you should see the icons as shown in Picture 1. They reflect the settings assigned to the different folders.

Reply | Quote

2 Things that Microsoft still doesn’t do right in Onedrive

1 When creating new POP/IMAP email in Outlook( a lot of people still use it), it creates the PST/OST file in an Outlook files directory residing in the Documents directory. That causes an issue where the Backup PC folders cannot be implemented on the Documents folder, and you have to exclude Documents. Why not change Outlook setup to create the Outlook files folder outside of any Onedrive folder?

2 I use a second partition for all my data, so that reinstalls are easier/quicker to do. When Onedrive is moved to a second partition/drive on my PC, you can also not set up Backup PC folders. Why not, when I can specify on a new install where my Onedrive folder resides. Why then not allow me to specify where the traditional Documents folder reside? Can the registry not deduce where these folders reside? Or do I need to first move the location of traditional Documents/Pictures folder to my second partition/drive? The Desktop cannot be moved, in any case.

Or am I missing something in wanting things to work easier/more logically?

Reply | Quote

Francois3000 wrote:

When creating new POP/IMAP email in Outlook( a lot of people still use it), it creates the PST/OST file in an Outlook files directory residing in the Documents directory. That causes an issue where the Backup PC folders cannot be implemented on the Documents folder, and you have to exclude Documents. Why not change Outlook setup to create the Outlook files folder outside of any Onedrive folder?

Well the alternative would be to make Outlook behave in a way that’d enable at least occasional syncing to external storage while running…

Outlook datafile corruption is a common enough problem that this really should be addressed.

I’d say this one probably isn’t OneDrive’s fault.

Now, in my opinion OneDrive really should also work with Maildir folders with long and fancy filenames, but I suppose that’s just too much to ask.

Reply | Quote

Very-informative article…

At the end of the 2nd paragraph, it says, ” (See the next article for tips on better OneDrive synching.)”.

Where is this article?

TIA.

Reply | Quote

Next week is my guess. The final sentence refers to future OneDrive articles.

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.1483 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

2 users thanked author for this post.

rc primak, BillSpeights

Reply | Quote

Along the same lines, when I reviewed my backup settings, I discovered that OneDrive can’t handle junctions, of which I had several that I created within four Visual Studio solutions around which I wrote an article for publication. For the time being, I converted them to junctions, although I will probably move them to the directory where I keep the rest of my source code repositories, which isn’t mirrored to OneDrive.

Incidentally, perhaps it is the result of a setting that I inadvertently changed, but my OneDrive client defaults to read/write access when it creates new links for sharing.

David A. Gray

Designing for the Ages, One Challenge at a Time

Reply | Quote

OneDrive still doesn’t back up directly from the original file locations, like Dropbox, Carbonite, or Google Backup and Sync. That makes it less useful to me.

GreatAndPowerfulTech

Reply | Quote

Yes, I just now noticed that; it moves them into the OneDrive directory, which may be enough to motivate me to undo the change that I just made. While I don’t object to the Desktop and Downloads folders being moved, My Documents is another matter altogether.

David A. Gray

Designing for the Ages, One Challenge at a Time

Reply | Quote

One other feature of Dropbox which is not available with OneDrive – block sync. I have very large files to which I frequently make small changes. With OneDrive that means frequent very large and time consuming data transfers to/from the Cloud. With Dropbox it is a few KB in a few seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply | Quote

I uninstalled OneDrive/Cloud – I assume they’re one and the same – because there was a red blotch on the cloud icon which indicated something was wrong. I clicked on it and it said it couldn’t sync some files. Since I wasn’t using it anyway, I uninstalled it, thinking I could go to Microsoft and reinstal it. But that wasn’t the case though. I couldn’t find it anywhere so I installed something similar from Microsoft store but I’d prefer the original cloud which came with Microsoft 10. Does anyone know if I can reinstall the original OneDrive and how I might go about it?

Molli10

Reply | Quote

The answer may depend upon which version you want to restore. An article at https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-reinstall-restore-OneDrive-on-Windows-10 seems focused on the “personal” version. Since I have a business-grade OneDrive, I am using the version that comes with Office 365. I think you can get it through the O365 portal if you have access to it.

David A. Gray

Designing for the Ages, One Challenge at a Time

Reply | Quote

@Molli10 Sign in to your Microsoft account, click Onedrive link, and select “Get the Onedrive Apps (bottom left)

Reply | Quote

[Aussie]

Thanks for the article … and I hope that I can resolve my issues. But for Figure #1 and Figure #4 … I don;t understand. I am admittedly jaded having tested this software so many times only to revert to manual syncing or a third party program.

For Figure 1, I see no icons in the status column … ideas? I have files … I have folders … no status. Solved … OK obvious I guess … OneDrive needs to be signed in … for some reason it says it was signing in … but it’s wasn’t connecting. Signed out and signed back in … I have status.

I can’t find a way to see Figure 4 … where is it  buried? OK Solved … You did state “If you right-click the OneDrive label in the File Explorer tree, you’ll also see Settings …” That was the solution … I would have liked a reference to Figure 4 earlier … with this comment …

As a suggestion, you might consider always starting with a short note indicating how to get to where you are pointing. So many times posters/writers (many with the best intentions, but presumably in a hurry) think that the user knows where all the links are … and that is just not the case. In fact I am specifically reading this article so I don’t have to search for the links. Additionally, for this articles suggestions to work, I guess that you would need to set up OneDrive first (and yes I have done that many years ago) … but I guess some users won’t even get to Figure 1. Perhaps point to an article setting up OneDrive?

Wherever you go ... there you are!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Aussie. Reason: Solved both issues

Reply | Quote

“Microsoft finally got OneDrive right”
…but, well, not surprisingly, there is nothing here which I can use.

Amy’s writing to a specific, not the general, population:  she assumes that there aren’t any of us Win7 users out here — the lunatic fringe.   It would be a nice gesture to mark pieces like this one with some kind of a “Current-Windows-Versions-Only” flag.

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 build 7601;
Laptop with a single-core processor (AMD Athlon 64, Model TF-20, 1.6GHz);
3.0Gb RAM;
160Gb hard disk drive;
ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics Adapter;
Two standard USB 3.0 ports;
Second monitor = Dell E198WFP(Analog)

 

Reply | Quote