How thirsty MSFT is for my documents

[GON]

MSFT has an insatiable desire for all my documents. I subscribe to MSFT Office annual subscription, hate paying the annual fee, but I do it.

MSFT has a cloud storage called one-drive. Anytime I go to save a document, MSFT stealthy defaults save and save as documents to one-drive instead of my local hard drive. MSFT makes the cloud drive look like my local drive, so if I don't watch closely, my documents end up at MSFT cloud.

I thought the fix to prevent my documents going to the MSFT cloud was to sign-out of the MSFT cloud. What I discovered is MSFT signs me back into their cloud, without my knowledge or any action on my part.

How crazy is that........

 

[paulri]

I have disabled One Drive from starting up with Windows. Have you tried that? I use Word all the time, every day, and I never get the default setting changed to One Drive/cloud. Have you gone in to the Options dialog, and looked at the Save tab? I set my Default File Locations to desktop, and unless I'm editing a file saved somewhere else, that is the default location. If that doesn't help, sorry, I'm out of ideas. But it sure seems like there should be a workaround.

 

[dishdude]

365 is a web based solution, most people want their documents backed up. You can still buy a disc and use it locally/offline if you want to be old fashioned.

 

[Quattro Pete]

MSFT has an insatiable desire for all my documents. I subscribe to MSFT Office annual subscription, hate paying the annual fee, but I do it.

You know you don't have to, right? Instead of paying a monthly (or annual) fee forever, you can just make a one-time purchase of Office 2021 that is locally installed on your PC. I think I paid $89 for mine.

One Drive? I don't use it.

 

[GON]

365 is a web based solution, most people want their documents backed up. You can still buy a disc and use it locally/offline if you want to be old fashioned.

I simply don't want MSFT to have access to my documents. Nothing in my documents that is of concern, just don't desire MSFT having my documents, who knows what rights MSFT has to the contents in my documents for "quality control or other purposes".

No issue MSFT offers the storage- that is fine. Problem is I don't want them to have them, and as soon as I turn my back, they have, without my consent or knowledge, defaulted my documents to their cloud.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Or get Libre Office for free and don't look back.

 

[Pew]

MS made that change annoying sometime late last year I think. You can unlink your folders/PC to it by right clicking the icon in the system tray and going into settings.

 

[dishdude]

I simply don't want MSFT to have access to my documents. Nothing in my documents that is of concern, just don't desire MSFT having my documents, who knows what rights MSFT has to the contents in my documents for "quality control or other purposes".

No issue MSFT offers the storage- that is fine. Problem is I don't want them to have them, and as soon as I turn my back, they have, without my consent or knowledge, defaulted my documents to their cloud.

But you're using a web based solution, Microsoft servers have access to your document if you save it to OneDrive or not.

 

[SC Maintenance]

But you're using a web based solution, Microsoft servers have access to your document if you save it to OneDrive or not.

There already scraped into their generative AI model as you type them likely anyway. Welcome to the borg.

 

[Elkins45]

If I wanted my documents to live in the cloud I would use Google Drive because it’s free. I don’t, so I bought the actual one-time install full Office program. All documents are stored on my HD where I want them.

 

[dishdude]

I personally have no problem with my documents on cloud servers hosted by Google, Microsoft or Apple. My main concern are hackers getting into sensitive financial information, but all three have robust safeguards in place.

 

[Ed_Flecko]

Or get Libre Office for free and don't look back.

You are 100% correct!

Ed

 

[Vercingetorix]

Uncle Bill loves you.

 

[ka9mnx]

Never, ever, store anything in the cloud!
Keep all your work on an external hard drive. Not on your boot drive. Run a daily, or weekly, automatic backup on a second external hard drive using laptop hard drives in cheap enclosures. Although SSD's are faster, I prefer to use spinning rust for reliability and because I'm cheap.

 

[Wrenchturner44]

Hey GON, Consider that you must be an excellent writer. Maybe MS wants your documents as excellent examples to help teach it's AI on how to write well......LOL.

 

[Jimmy9190]

Hey GON, Consider that you must be an excellent writer. Maybe MS wants your documents as excellent examples to help teach it's AI on how to write well......LOL.

This +1. I personally don't think it's good at all to use the cloud. I really don't even know what or where the cloud even is. I don't need MS or Google to store my documents, pictures, etc. I keep all of that on flash drives and don't store anything on my laptop except for mp3 music files.

Libre Office is a great alternative to MS Office and the Google Suite. I have read before that MS is collecting user data to feed and train their AI Copilot or whatever they call it now. I have no source for it but I remember reading that MS especially loves to take user data from people using Edge.

 

[Elkins45]

I personally have no problem with my documents on cloud servers hosted by Google, Microsoft or Apple. My main concern are hackers getting into sensitive financial information, but all three have robust safeguards in place.

I’m not afraid of security, I’m afraid of access. Sometimes you can’t get online when you need to.

 

[IveBeenRued]

I personally have no problem with my documents on cloud servers hosted by Google, Microsoft or Apple. My main concern are hackers getting into sensitive financial information, but all three have robust safeguards in place.

lol. Oh how timely.

3-8-24
Russian state-backed hackers gained access to some of Microsoft’s core software systems in a hack first disclosed in January, the company said Friday, revealing a more extensive and serious intrusion into Microsoft’s systems than previously known.

Microsoft believes that the hackers have in recent weeks used information stolen from Microsoft’s corporate email systems to access “some of the company’s source code repositories and internal systems,” the tech firm said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

[Hall]

Uninstall OneDrive