Windows 11 is nagging users to try OneDrive to "fully backup" your PC
Windows 11 is nagging users to try OneDrive to "fully backup" your PC
Windows 11 and Windows 10 were recently updated with “Windows Backup”, which has now become a system app. While the feature initially appeared as “optional” or something that could be easily dismissed, Microsoft is slowly getting aggressive with its new OneDrive backup campaign on Windows 11.
Windows 11’s “Windows Backup” uses OneDrive to back up many of the things that are important to you. This may include your credentials, settings, pictures, documents, videos, files, themes, or even audio settings. Microsoft wants the Windows Backup app to become the ultimate backup tool, but there’s a catch.
Windows Backup does not support offline backups and requires a OneDrive plan. By default, OneDrive offers 5GB of free storage, which is why some users do not want to backup their PC. But is that going to stop Microsoft from pestering users? Probably not. In a new server-side update, Windows 11 has started nagging users to try the Backup tool.
Shut up, OneDrive.
Life hack: Install Windows 10/11 Enterprise IOT LTSC you get support for a long time and there is absolutely no bullshit pre installed.
It's the first thing I uninstall in a fresh install
Microsoft is teaching a whole generations to ignore them.
What drives me nuts about this is that it always uses the vague language of security and data protection without any consideration that, y'know, they have competition from other cloud providers and self-hosted solutions that do things that OneDrive can't even do. I guess if you have your backups anywhere else it doesn't count.
Yeah but they have one killer feature others don't : shuting up these f**king notifications.
Given 'backup' or 'back-up' is a noun, and 'back up' is the verb form, does the nag pop-up have the spelling mistake? It suggests the people writing (and reviewing) this code aren't the star employees. Is it a make-work project from sales? Intern-chow?
Your PC is not fully backed up
Backup is not turned on for Credentials and Folders. Back up now to save them if something happens to your PC.
This is the prompt from the screenshot in the article.
Seems right to me.
It's the third god damned time I find newly installed MS software doing "something" in the background that I never authorized. I don't even have Onedrive. I purged that sin from the metal as soon as I had the chance.
I already intend to change OSes. The real question is now if I do it when I decide to upgrade, or in the fast lane. Which is it Microsoft?
Do it now. The more time you give yourself for dealing with it the better. Start dual booting, or on one of your devices. familiarize yourself and transition slowly, rather than having to deal with all of it at once.
I've already tried Linux several times over the years. My problems were mainly poor program compatibility and RTX card related driver issues for the latest attempt. At the time I couldn't afford to change since critical work related programs did not run at all properly on Linux. Albeit that has changed in time. Also, because of the AI craze, NVIDIA has finally shipped decent drivers to linux land.
What prevents me most nowadays is mainly having to setup everything, which I'd rather do once when upgrading the whole system. The Power User moat has been filling over time and the confy guys upstairs are non the wiser.
I think Windows 10 will be the last version I use. As time goes on, Linux seems more and more like a viable option, and I'll be glad to have control over my PC for once. And who knows, maybe I will no longer have the mysterious freezing issue that's been plaguing me for years...
I switched to opensuse tumbleweed about 3 months ago and I have zero complaints. Yast is such a powerful too you can avoid using the terminal for many things, and it being rolling release makes it easier to stay up to date. Plus it comes with snapper reconfigured so if anything breaks you can rollback in about 5 minutes. I've had to learn some new things, and a few online games don't work according to proton db but I've yet to run into a game problem on a game I want to play.
I don't mind learning and using the terminal. From what I hear, it can be used to automate things more easily than on Windows and I'm all for it, as long as it's not needed for everyday tasks.
I think when I eventually (soon, I hope) get my PC hooked up where I'm at I'll try either Pop!_OS or Mint.
Thanks for the feedback~
I switched to Pop!_OS earlier this year and couldn’t be happier. All apps run way faster than they did with Windows on the same hardware. All but one of my Steam games run great (one day I’ll get that last game to work). My “life critical” things are web based, everything else is adjustable.
That sounds promising. I've heard good things about Pop!_OS. Which game has issues, if I might ask?
I try to avoid web-based apps when I can. For instance, there is a supposedly great photo editor that's only available via web browser. I'd hate to become dependent on it and then lose access due to an internet outage, or something.
I switched over ~3 ish years ago and have never been happier. I recommend Fedora if you want any distro suggestions.
Do all distros have the same compatibility with video cards and software? I want something that'll run Blender, Krita, Gimp, etc., and support my Wacom tablet. And run my favorite games, of course. Lots of people say Mint is good for newbies jumping ship. I don't mind learning a new environment and running console commands from time-to-time.
This nagging + only offering a "Not Now" "rejection" option shit needs to stop. Apple constantly does this too on iPhone and Mac. Umm, I said no to having it or upgrading it, that should mean never bother me again unless I seek it out intentionally.
It genuinely makes my skin crawl — reminds me of being nagged for sex from someone who hears "not now" when you mean "no."
One would have to be a special kind of stupid to do that.
Also even if I had the space on my OneDrive (and I've even got 30GB thanks to some promotions from the Windows Phone days) my upload speed is dogshit slow and I don't want to think about how long it would take me to upload the 70GB it wants to backup.
Man, they just keep burying their head further. I still have Windows 10 on my gaming PC, and that's more because I plan on replacing it and will use that moment to transition to Linux, but up until a few months ago I could have been convinced to keep using Windows.
That was until they popped up a full screen ad in the middle of gaming, telling me my PC doesn't work with 11 but they have great financing options forn a 11 capable PC. Followed by my lock screen having ads of a similar nature. Fucking gross.
That's despicable. Popping a window up over everything enrages me even when it's an application I intended to open. Popping up a fucking ad while I am in the middle of something is completely unacceptable. I can definitely see what that was the last straw.
Search for "chris titus windows tool". It's a debloat tool that removes such annoyances. It also includes a button that runs the Shutup tool, that disables another bunch.
I'm a Linux user but I use these tools (and massgravel) on Windows VMs to make them behave.
Microsoft will continue ramping up the ads, nags, and dark patterns until everyone is subscribed to their own hardware.
*until everyone stops using Windows. Except for business users, which probably don't get these nags anyway
Windows 7 was my last windows. Since then it's been Linux on all machines. It was easy to see where Microsoft were going. And they will continue to go down this route.
When you run windows, it's not your computer.
Windows2000 was my last. After having managed to work in IT and using Linux on my desktop, I started a new job last year which required me to use Windows11. I find it quite awkward.
Luckily WSL is a thing.
I'm getting tired of Microsoft reading my data. What's you backup strategy on linux?
Not OP but:
Separate the system and home partition, first of all. The strategies are usually different.
Many distros integrate Timeshift out of the box to create system partition snapshots before every update, and to be able to restore them from the boot menu. Using BTRFS for the system partition makes this even better.
This is usually all that people need in regards to the system, but you can also take regular backups (see below) of things like /etc, the list of installed packages and things like that.
For personal files I prefer Borg Backup because it is incremental, does compression, deduplication, encryption, checksums & recovery.
Borg works with repositories, which can be on local disk, on a removable disk, or remote. If remote, they are tunneled over SSH. It can also export/import tarballs for more exotic scenarios like moving snapshots between different repositories or backing up data to optical discs.
You can use Borg from the CLI and there are also UI apps that make it easier. Pika Backup is a simpler one, Vorta is a more advanced one. I've set up family members with Pika and after preparing it for them all they have to do is plug in the backup HDD, open Pika, and hit the big "backup now" button.
There are also online services that support Borg repositories specifically, and for anything that doesn't you can export tarballs and back them up as regular files, completely transparently from the service.
rcloneis a cli tool that supports a large number of online storage services. You can use it with borg snapshots or you can use it to back up your files directly — it resembles rsync somewhat and can also do encryption iirc.I don't store any data on my home machines. Anything important is on my NAS which then gets backed up to Backblaze, and to a NAS as my parents house.
I can wipe my laptop and have apps set up again in an hour, and my desktop mainly stores games I can just redownload from Steam.
simply timeshift backing up the system on ssd. random important stuff, tv shows etc on hdd and backup of the hdd on an external hdd. pictures and other important files also on phone storage.
Automatic system snapshots via BTRFS. Backup to external disk via rsync.
I have a synology NAS with two disks in raid config, where I store backups from the other machines over the home network. So one disk can fail without issues. And I backup the Nas to a hetzner storage box as well. They are pretty cheap. :)
The old days when pairing anything with OS would make US government sue you
Microsoft and nagging? Naaahh, they would never! They would never "hey hello, please please send us feedback!" 5x per day while I'm trying to get work done on that awful offce365. They would never stuff popups all over their sites to continuously nag me about new updates and features and bullshit, they. Would. Never.
I've got bad news for you. I found out that if you fill in the survey it still comes back on every click.
Didn't read the article, but Windows 10 did the whole OneDrive backup nag message thing as well. Defender would always shiw a warning that you're "not secure" if you don't backup to OneDrive.
We started seeing this pop-up recently, but here's the thing, my organization already uses OneDrive (unfortunately) but the pop-up just says that they need to contact your administrator to set it up (OneDrive is already setup)
Just means the new backup service has permissions off by default.
Since your company may not want that, enjoy the eternal Microsoft spam forever.
Yeah. Then I'll fill up my free 15gb quota with garbage OS files, and be prompted to pay a subscription to backup the other 1-2tb of data.
And you're gonna need that backup as windows and it's publishers work hard to kill your computer through automated updates.
Install Linux already, dammit
The business side is only going to care if that popup is going to get them that 2% more revenue next year or not.
This. It is annoying for 100% of the users, but a small percentage will be fooled and end up using OneDrive and probably end up paying.
It literally works like spam. Very little effort to cast a wide net and a small succes rate is enough to make a profit. Of course long term they keep pushing people out. But hey, profits this year, we'll see about next years when it hits us ..
Is this real life? Is this just fantasy? Why does windows attempt to be iOS?
Because iCloud was a smashing success for Apple when they used this technique?
At least iOS and macOS don’t keep on asking you after you say no like Windows does though. At least not until you change something in your iCloud configuration.
Why does windows attempt to B-S-O-D
FTFY, with Crowdstrike these days
I updated a surface pro this morning and it was a huge effort just to log back in. Like, it took several minutes to get through all the prompts, login errors and finally land on the desktop.
Now I need to check if OneDrive installed itself again.
I've been using a Surface with Bazzite which works great.
Interesting. I wonder if I'm going to end up getting this or not? My guess is that I won't, but we'll see.
I have Windows 11 on my new computer, yes (and I needed Windows because some of the things I want to do require it), but I installed Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC, and it doesn't really come with much of anything out of the box. It's supposed to only get security updates, no features updates.
