Replies

CWheeler wrote:

Also check whether the security settings in the new Firefox install are the same as in the Win10 install, especially the Enhanced Tracking Protection.

They are the same.

But thanks for the suggestion.

Magnus wrote:

Maybe this support topic (which is a couple of years old – almost to the day, as it happens) is of use:

https://support.mozilla.org/si/questions/1399712

I wouldn’t go as far as uninstalling/reinstalling FF just yet but I often find that login problems like yours can be solved by completely emptying the cache, closing the browser and restarting my device.  Try the ‘mail dot yahoo dot com’ URL, too.

As I just mentioned in my reply to TechTango, disabling all of my add-ons solved the problem, so I didn’t get to the point of dealing with the cache. Since trying to log into Yahoo was the very first think I did after installing FF on this new computer, I wouldn’t expect the cache to have been the culprit in any case, but who knows?

Later this weekend I’ll turn all of my add-ons back on, clear the cache and then see what effect that has.

Thanks.

TechTango wrote:

BobStr wrote:

Does anyone have any idea of what the problem could be and how to fix it?

This may seem too easy but it will at lease eliminate one possible cause.

If you’re running multiple ad blocking extensions on Firefox turn them all off and restart the browser then test your Yahoo log in.  If it works, then enable your extensions one at a time followed by a login attempt until you find the extension that causes the flaw.

How odd. As mentioned in my original message, I don’t have any ad blockers on Firefox. Also, I sync my FF settings, so everything on my desktop PC is exactly the same as on my laptop, the only difference being Win 11 versus Win 10, and the latter doesn’t have the same issue. Nevertheless…

In reaction to your suggestion, I decided “I’ll try anything,” and turned off all of my add-ons, with the exception of my password manager, and tah dah! I can now log into Yahoo. Beats me why that would be, but here we go and there you are.

At some point I’m now going to have to go back and turn them on one-by-one, to figure out which one was the culprit. It’s going to be a tedious affair, logging in and out of Yahoo and restarting the browser multiple times, so I can’t get to it right away. But I will do it in the fullness of time, as they say, and then report back here.

Thanks for the advice.

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TechTango

Some further thoughts.

I picked up Windows 11 All-in-One for Dummies over night, and looked up File History. The discussion isn’t very thorough — or maybe it is. Under the heading “Changing File History settings” the book states, in full: “File History backs up every file in every user folder on your computer. If you have a folder that you want to have backed up, just put it in one of the standard user folders. File History takes care of all the details.” (Emphasis in the original.)

Not helpful to me, because I don’t create or store my files and folders in the User folders. Also, the book’s discussion possibly isn’t complete, because my Googling turned up a way to add stuff that’s not in a User folder. It’s weird, but it works — perhaps. It involves using File Explorer to browse to wherever the desired folder is, right clicking, and using the context menu. Now, that may or may not be a good way to do it, for as I mentioned in an earlier message, when I test drove FH in such a manner, it took files from a folder on my D:\ drive and distributed the backup between that folder and the Document folder on my C:\ drive. The result being that the organization of my files in the backup did not correspond to their  organization on the C:\ and D:\ drives. So that method may “work”, but it does so rather poorly.

In Windows 10 there’s a single place from which one can both select folders to be omitted and folders to be added. It’s very easy to select which folders to include and exclude. And it doesn’t go around reorganizing how the user maintains his files. Unless I’m still missing something, the new design seems to be simply more cumbersome than the old one, without any apparent benefit to balance the added inconvenience. (Plus, it seems to be designed to discourage its being used outside the User folders.) So I’m guessing that I’m going to have to look for an alternative to FH.

Also, in case anyone is interested, I plan to head over Windows 11 Forum, and see what advice I can get there, before giving up entirely on FH.

Again, thanks all.

samak wrote:

BobStr wrote:

“Exclude folders” brings up a box where, I guess, I can enter paths to folders I want excluded, but it doesn’t seem to have a place to view what’s included in the first place.

Just a thought; do you need to turn FH on before it will show you the folders?

 

From what I’ve been able to determine, I can see the folders which have been backed up. But it can’t figure out a way to see what’s been designated to be backed. I can’t see the latter either before or after the back up has been done.

For all I know, there’s a way to see it, but I haven’t found it.

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PL1

Thanks for all the replies.

But here’s the problem. I ran FH as a test, without finding a way to exclude folders on the C:\ drive, and, in the backup, it took files from a folder on my D:\ drive and distributed them between that folder and the Document folder from the C:\ drive.

I posed a different message on this forum a few days ago, regarding the havoc that OneDrive created with my file organization (including, but not limited to, the way that it made it impossible to change the location of default folders from one drive to another), and FH seems inclined to misbehave the same way that OneDrive does.

It seems very weird that Microsoft would take such a step backward on Windows 11, by making it impossible to see which folders FH is set to back up, even though that was easily done in Win 10. (Or maybe it’s not weird at all, since it is Microsoft, after all).

So if anyone has any idea how, on Windows 11, to view which folders FH is set to back up, and to exclude them before FH is ever run for the first time, I’d appreciate hearing.

Thanks large.

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PL1

PL1 wrote:

BobStr wrote:

I’m trying to set up File History, and am a little lost, because the controls aren’t the same as for Windows 10, and I haven’t been able to find basic instructions that correspond to exactly what I see on my computer. (Admittedly, I may be poor at Googling).

I don’t use that feature myself, but Settings has a search function which points to Control Panel> System & Security> File History.

 

Thank for the reply.

However, I was aware of that one. Although it provides a way to turn FH on, I don’t see a place to bring up a list of what’s being backed up.

“Advanced settings” merely covers how often to back up, and so on. “Exclude folders” brings up a box where, I guess, I can enter paths to folders I want excluded, but it doesn’t seem to have a place to view what’s included in the first place.

My PC has separate drives for apps and data. Based on my previous experience, by default FH backs up stuff from the C:\ drive (e.g., the default Documents folder, and so on). I don’t want anything backed up from C:\. I want to back up only the data on D:\. However, I can’t find a way to do that, since I can’t even see what FH is set to backup.

It may well be in an obvious place, and I’m an idiot for not being able to see it, but here I am.

But thanks again for replying.

 

 

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PL1

I followed both suggestions, and nothing new has appeared, so (knock on wood) the problem appears to be behind me.

Thanks to both of you for your help.

Alex5723 wrote:

BobStr wrote:

Maybe disabling OneDrive again made it disappear overnight?..permanently get OneDrive out of my life..

Uninstall OneDrive in Apps – installed apps.
or
Run the command: winget uninstall Microsoft.OneDrive’

I’d really like to do that. Although I’ve been told, although I don’t recall where, that unlike in earlier versions of Windows, in Win 11 it’s an “integral part” of the operating system and can’t be uninstalled, it certainly is listed in my settings as something that can be done. (Apparently it’s not all that integral, if that’s what it is.)

However, I’m reluctant (actually, downright afraid) to try it in the present state of affairs, for fear of breaking something. Especially since the approach of briefly turning it back on, then disabling OneDrive backup (via Win + i | Accounts | Windows backup | OneDrive folder syncing | Toggling off all the folders) led to so much havoc, the end result of which was that I now don’t even know whether those folders have remained toggled off, because they kept toggling back on when I tried to do it. If turning off OneDrive is supposed to be completely effective only if OneDrive folder syncing has been disabled, and I’m not even in a position to know whether that’s actually now the state of affairs, then I wonder about the risk of nevertheless uninstalling the entire program without further ado.

Also, there’s the matter of that weird user file, with the OneDrive subfolder. It contains not only the default folders that I was unable to move, but also app data for several of the programs that I’ve installed. What effect would simply uninstalling OneDrive have on all that?

Sorry to have these rudimentary concerns, but my not understanding what’s going on makes me very concerned to make sure that I have it all down correctly before proceeding.

Thanks very much.

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Alex5723

I’m getting the idea that that’s the way to go with this latest nonsense.

By the way, this morning I find that that new OneDrive icon is now gone from the lower right corner of the desktop. Maybe disabling OneDrive again made it disappear overnight? An issue probably not worth pursuing.

It’s become clear that my major issue isn’t moving the default folders, but what to do in order to permanently get OneDrive out of my life. I suspect that, what with the process for turning off OneDrive backup being so dysfunctional, this won’t be the last time that OneDrive interferes with my computer.

But that’s not the central subject of the current thread, so I’ll leave it at that.

Thanks everyone for the advice to date.

 

 

 

 

Well, I turned OneDrive back on, so I could then turn off OneDrive backup before disabling OneDrive again. It turned out, though, that when I first went into the latter setting, all of the folders (I think that a total of six were listed) were set to off. However, it immediately became chaotic, because three of the folders apparently are designed to toggle back on automatically if anyone comes near them.

Specifically, I proceeded as follows:

1. Win + i
2. Accounts
3. Windows backup
4. OneDrive folder syncing

The instructions say at that point to toggle off each folder. But, as mentioned, all of the folders were already toggled off. However, the first three folders in order (I don’t remember which ones; I could go back, but suspect that that’s a bad idea) automatically toggled on after only a split second delay. I kept trying to toggle them back off, but they kept toggling back on, all on their own.

It didn’t take long to realize what was happening. I at least was able to act quickly enough (I think) to rapidly toggle off all three and then hit the Close button. I hope that they stayed off at that point, but I have no way of knowing for sure without going back into OneDrive folder syncing, which would start the entire jamboree all over again. But note that, unless I misunderstand them, the instructions indicate that I’m supposed to hit OK after each folder is toggled off. I had no time to do that, because I only had time to get all three toggled off and then hit Close before any of them came back on again.

I did go back once, and, again for a split second, all six seemed to be off, but then, as before, the first three in order automatically toggled back on, and I had to go through the same routine, quickly toggling all three off and then closing.

On top of that, I now have a new icon in the lower right of the screen. It wasn’t there before. Clicking on it makes a list pop upward. At the top it says “Your files are synced.” Below that is a list of 36 files. Some are files that currently exist in various areas of my computer, others are the ones that I mentioned in my original message — the three-year old, unwanted files that, without any action on my part, were put onto my desktop immediately after I created my PIN. So even though I deleted them earlier, they’re apparently still around in some sense. (Under each file’s name, there’s a brief phrase. In the case of the three-year old files, under each name it says “Deleted from Desktop.”) At the same time, this list of 36 files doesn’t appear to be expanding, suggesting, at least, that nothing else on my computer is currently being appropriated by OneDrive.

At this point, I’ve gone back and disabled OneDrive again. That’s the only thing I have the ability to do on my own.

As for whether those folders were in fact all completely toggled off before I went into OneDrive folder syncing as described above, there remains the fact that I haven’t been able to change the locations of some default folders (documents and pictures), but was able to do it with others (downloads and music). I haven’t tried with Desktop or Videos. Maybe the ones I couldn’t change were among the first three in order in OneDrive folder syncing, the ones that turn on automatically? I dunno.

In any case, if all OneDrive backups were toggled off already, why couldn’t I move some default folders? And if they (or just some of them) were toggled on, then why wasn’t that OneDrive icon in the lower right of the desktop from the get-go?

I know this has been a long discussion. But I don’t know what I could have left out. If anyone can shed any light on this mess — the why of it and what to do about it — I’d sincerely appreciate it.

Thanks.

Can you say: once I’ve disabled OneDrive and changed the user name — I’m going to change it to “Bob”, same as on my old computer — can I then simply delete that OneDrive subfolder from Bob?

I’d like that subfolder out of there for more than aesthetic reasons. For example, my calendar program on my defunct Win 10 computer backed up to a zip file. Setting up the new computer has taught me that when that file is used to import my settings and entries to a new computer, the program requires there to exist user file C:\Users\Bob. Consequently, importing that stuff to my new computer has been impossible so far, because, as currently installed, the program does things through C:\Users\<weird unwanted user name>\OneDrive.

I assume that I going to have to uninstall and reinstall the calendar program after I’ve corrected the user name, but before I do that, I want to be sure that there’s no OneDrive subfolder under user name Bob to gum up the works.

Thanks for your help.

That page on disabling OneDrive warns that it’s important to first turn off OneDrive backup before disabling OneDrive, and it provides a link to instructions on how to do that. That link is:

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/turn-on-or-off-onedrive-folder-backup-syncing-across-windows-11-devices.4321/

Those instructions provide two options: turn off OneDrive folder backup syncing in settings, or do it in OneDrive settings. Since they’re listed as options, instead of necessary steps, I read that to say that either one will do the job.

Can you say whether one way is any better or worse than the other? Or is this just Windows’ way of providing routes to accomplish exactly the same thing? Ordinarily, I’d just assume the latter, but as you can see from my first message, I’m pretty paranoid about OneDrive at this stage, and that compels me to ask the question.

Thanks for your help.
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Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks for the explanation.

As for the settings, neither the camera nor the Gallery settings appear to have anything related to orientation. As least not in words that I recognize as relating to the issue.

The camera itself gets the shot correctly, in that the long & short sides of the resulting jpg always correspond to the position in which I held the phone in order to take the shot. That is, if I orient the camera so as to take a photo in landscape view, then the resulting jpg accurately reflects that the photo was taken in landscape. The only issue is that roughly half of the photographs that I take result in jpg’s that half to be rotated 90 degrees to the left in order to view them properly.