Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Try completely removing one drive to understand the rest of our pain. Even if you manage to get the program gone, somehow the default file save location for many applications is still a (now deleted) one drive folder. If you forget and click save.. well now you have one drive again.



Don't. Do. That.

Leave it alone, that's why Windows is breaking for you. You keep fucking with core components. It's not Linux. You can't do that and not suffer consequences.


Leave it alone? It's unnecessary bloatware, that performs absolutely zero required functionality. It's continuous prominent presence in the _always_ visible part of the file tree on the left of _every_ explorer window is a constant reminder that what used to be my favorite OS is now user hostile.

At least in Europe it did get a proper uninstall a while ago, which proves that it really was just there for promotion.

I'd gladly pay for a version of Windows that just leaves me alone. No I don't want Edge, Bing, a weather snippet, start search, Cortana, forced updates and a regular black pattern maze promising a somehow "improved experience" while trying to force metrics participation down my throat.

But I also don't want Linux, because many tools I rely on (plus games) won't run on it and I don't want a Mac because it's too opinionated. It feels exactly like being stuck in an abusive relationship at this point.


Unnecessary bloatware? Bloatware really? What does it bloat? You can make all of these things disappear without removing them from Windows itself. You also have to remember that an inaction is an action. Ignoring a pop-up or not reading something and then just clicking x doesn't equal this thing will not bother me anymore. You can make the weather snippet widget thing just not be there anymore and it's not hard. I have more than just edge installed for my browser and I could switch between them even though I favor edge and use edge as my default browser. Cortana hasn't showed itself on my computer for... I have no idea how long and that's just because I went through every setting and read everything... No group policy changes, no registry hacks, just using Windows. If you are on professional or higher of windows then you could just pause updates over and over and over. If an update is waiting then go into Windows update in the settings and click pause and then it doesn't install it. I've postponed updating since January because I'm on an insider build that has a known blocker where it can't be updated from.


> Unnecessary bloatware?

Yes. I don't want it, I don't need it, my OS does not need it to function, I never asked for it and (until the EU forced them to change this) I could not remove it.

> Bloatware really?

Yes, really. "Unwanted software included on a new computer or mobile device by the manufacturer". What in this definition does not apply, according to you?

> What does it bloat?

My OS, duh. It probably does not waste too many resources, as long as I don't engage with it, but the fact that it's there and it was shoved into my face on every explorer window is something worse than spam. It's basically the modern day equivalent of those shitty browser toolbars that some programs used to try to sneak install.

> You can make all of these things disappear

False. I was only able to fully disable OneDrive with registry hacks, before EU forced them to take it out.

So you are telling me, a Windows power user since 3.11, that I should just rtfm?

It's not about being able to turn certain things off, it's about the playbook that Microsoft is following these days, displaying malignant, almost petty behavior, like restoring the Edge shortcut on the desktop after updates.

It's about all the black patterns, like how you need to first go back a page in the post-update maze before you even get the option to continue without attaching a Microsoft account to your OS. Yes, I know that you can turn the maze off, but that option is hidden so far in the settings most users have no idea it even exists.

It's about the fact that they even dared to suggest putting ads in Explorer windows. It's about the clear sensation that my OS is no longer on my side. It's selling out, stabbing me in the back, turning rotten. It's a crying shame, but I may need to take it out to the back of the shed one of these days.


You can disable OneDrive pretty easily


Now you can, in Europe. It used to involve registry hacks, which, as others keep pointing out, could break stuff because it's not the way you are supposed to modify your OS.


Thus proving OP's point: it's not your computer.


If you remove glibc in Linux, it will start breaking too.


Onedrive is not a core windows component. It’s not a dependency of other applications. It’s just a Dropbox replacement.

Windows works, and has always worked, just fine without onedrive. Microsoft just doesn’t want you to know that, because they are obsessed with the idea of upselling you on subscription based cloud services.


> Onedrive is not a core windows component.

Unfortunately this is changing in the wrong direction for you or I.


I uninstalled onedrive from windows 11 and everything seems to work fine.

Don’t leave us in the dark. Is that option being removed in the future?


There’s actually a few different glibc replacements available for Linux.

And if you think OneDrive is essential for Windows then I’d suggest you do a little reading on the history of Microsoft and how they falsely claim dependencies on their own software stacks. Especially the court cases around debundling IE4 with Win98, and DR-DOS vs Windows 95.


Well, "technically" - it wasn't a false claim. It WAS dependent on IE and other things. It didn't have to be dependent - MS made it that way on purpose, so things would stop working without (even though the dependency didn't need to be baked in).

It's akin to adding webview to your application to display a text file, even though you never would display an HTML file. It could have been done another way, but it wasn't.


Except that it was demonstrated that IE could be removed from Windows 98. So Microsoft then claimed that Windows ran slower without IE. A judge (because this whole saga went to court) argued that Microsofts video evidence proving that point was falsified and so Microsoft later also dropped their slowness claim too.


No, it wasn't. There was w98lite and such where you could replace WIndows 98's (i)explore.exe/shell32.dll with a Windows 95 one and yet the rest of the software just ran like nothing, while being able to run IE in a standalone way.


Ignoring the fact that you're comparing a cloud storage client to what is essentially a kernel wrapper that all software depends on, you actually can remove glibc without breaking things. You just also have to install another libc (say, musl) and replace your software that targets glibc with software that targets musl, or install a glibc -> musl compatibility layer (gcompat).

So, yeah. If you actually know enough about libcs to want to get rid of glibc for a real reason, you can do it without breaking things. If you just want to go around and start deleting core system dependencies (which I think is very silly to put a cloud storage client in that bucket, regardless of the brand of cloud storage) without replacing them, then chaos seems to be the goal, and maybe order is the "broken" state for that machine :P


Stop holding it wrong!

Have you considered that maybe not being able to use your computer how your want is precisely why this post exists?


> core components

A Dropbox clone is now 'core OS compinents'? That's just as much a valid criticism of Windows as anything else in this thread


> You keep fucking with core components.

What exactly tells you that OneDrive a core component?


I completely agree. Removing vital parts of the Windows subsystem just leads to unintended consequences.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: