The Windows 10 Review: The Old & New Face of Windows
by Brett Howse on August 25, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Operating Systems
- Microsoft
- Windows 10
OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage for consumers, and it of course is built into Windows 10. For free, it comes with 15 GB of storage, and there are a couple of paid tiers to increase that storage. If you purchase Office 365, as a bonus you get unlimited OneDrive storage (right now it just shows 10 TB but it's increasing over time) so if you do need space in the cloud consider that.
OneDrive has changed dramatically from the Windows 8.1 implementation, and not necessarily for the better. In Windows 8.1, going through the Windows Explorer view you could see all of your files in OneDrive whether they were synced to your PC or not. Opening a file which was not on your PC would initiate a download of it, and then the file would open and stay synced on your computer. If you wanted to free up some space, you could just right click a file or folder and choose “Make available online only” and it would remove the local copy.
OneDrive in Windows 8.1 showing "Online-Only" Placeholders
This was an incredibly simple way to access a huge amount of online storage without having to have it copied to your PC first. However, for Windows 10, that feature is gone, and we have a reversion to the Windows 7 style of sync client.
In Windows 10, OneDrive is installed by default, and out of the box it does not sync any files or folders from OneDrive. If you don’t interact with it, you will get a pop-up asking you what files or folders you want to sync on this PC. You can drill down to subfolders just like in Windows 7 and just keep those synced, but compared to Windows 8.1 this is a major downgrade. Once you get used to being able to see all of your folders, it makes it really easy to save files and access them later. According to Microsoft, this was too complicated for end users though, and people would see the placeholder files for their online data and assume it was on their computer. Then they would go somewhere with no internet access, and they would have no access to their data which they thought was on their computer. I can kind of get that argument, but regardless the solution we have in Windows 10 is a huge step back in terms of functionality.
OneDrive Sync Client in Windows 10
With the huge amount of storage you can get in OneDrive now, and the relatively small amount of local storage available on SSDs, the placeholder system in Windows 8.1 was really nice.
In the Windows 10 sync client, you get all of the options you would expect. You can set where your OneDrive folder is stored on your PC, choose which folders to sync, and enable things like automatically copy photos to OneDrive when a camera is connected.
There are also a couple of other features which have come to OneDrive lately. You can now (finally) sync folders that other people have shared with you, although the method to do so and the end result is kind of complicated. In OneDrive on the web, you can now “Add this folder to your OneDrive” which will add the folder within your own OneDrive, and there the files will be synced as you want based on your settings. It’s a kind of clunky solution, and I’m not sure why they didn’t just add a “Shared” folder in the OneDrive shell. Also, I’m not sure if this will cut into your own storage, and since this feature is rolling out to users now, I don’t have access yet to test it.
You can also set OneDrive to let you "Fetch" files off of your computer through the OneDrive web client. This feature is one that was part of older Microsoft tools, and those tools have been phased out in favor of SkyDrive/OneDrive, and Microsoft is bringing their feature sets to OneDrive.
With that out of the way, Windows 10 does have some functionality for OneDrive which did not exist on Windows 8.1, and it is very handy. From within the Windows Explorer shell, you can now share a file directly from OneDrive by simply right clicking the file and choosing “Share a OneDrive link”. This was only available on the web before, and being able to create a web link for a file from within Windows Explorer is much more convenient.
It seems like I’ve been harsh on OneDrive, and I have, because Microsoft offers some of the most competitive priced online storage, and then they make it difficult to use. The Windows 8.1 solution was much nicer for many people, but perhaps with the changes to allow unlimited storage for Office 365, the placeholders would themselves take up too much space and be too much work to sync. Regardless, I’m hoping this gets improved over time.
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Brett Howse - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Thanks for the catch on that one :)abhaxus - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
Had a full screen takeover/scrolling ad when trying to read this article. Similar to the Tom's Hardware ads. I don't read that website anymore, and I will stop reading this one if it continues to happen.Anne Druide - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Only 30 minutes in and it is obvious to me that Microsoft has dropped the ball it had picked up with Windows 8.1. (1) Microsoft's efforts at fixing Windows continue to be APITA (a pain you know where)! WHY did they have to completely obliterate the Charms? Why not just have left them along the right side of the new Action Center? I mean really? Did that NOT cross any of the brilliant minds at MS? WHY remove such a distinctive and unique feature of 8.1. Why not integrate it into 10? (2) Furthermore, just as 8.1 had swung maybe (maybe not) too far towards the tiles, 10 has swung WAY too far towards the desktop. Now, to get to the Metro Tiles Menu it takes TWO steps! Why in the world does pressing the offscreen Window button bring up the Start Menu INSTEAD of the Metro Menu? The Start Menu ALREADY has its own Window icon! And what's a TOTAL WASTE is that pressing on the offscreen Windows button while in Tablet mode and on the Metro Menu does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It does not even bring up the Start Menu which would have been a great idea! Duh! (3) Finally, I feel that MS has lied about BRINGING BACK THE START BUTTON! Clicking on the Windows button located where the Start button was in Windows 7 does NOT bring anything up even remotely close to what we had in Windows 7! When I press the Start button I DON'T wanna see tiles; I wanna see all the practical functionality of what came up in Windows 7 when I pressed Start! INSTEAD, I get a very confusing flotsam and jetsam mish-mash of everything under the sun instead of quick access to the Control Panel and Task Bar content and...OMG there's no longer any user control of Windows Update?!!! All in all, my first 30 minutes with Windows 10 has been, as you can tell, VERY disappointing! WHY is it SO HARD for MS to JUST GET IT RIGHT! This is NOT even close to what Windows 10 SHOULD be. This is a limping Windows 9 with the 10 thrown in JUST not to look light years behind Apple's OS X whose TEN has been a thorn in the side of MS for how many years now?!mapesdhs - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Still looks to me like MS wants people to have a phone interface on a desktop, which is stupid. So many things once again look incredibly unprofessional, and the lack of configurability is just ridiculous. It makes the coding of this latest release look so amateurish. The smiley in the very first review image is typical. I could make a list of everything else which is stupid (eg. no Save As from right-button), but who has the time, and I'm sure the 22 pages of comments have covered them all already.I don't want to use an OS that looks like a phone interface. I'll keep using Win7 until MS offers something sensible.
straighttalk - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Totally useless review. No content, just a lot of opinion. Where's the beef? What are the issues? What problems are people who upgrade having?SteelRing - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
WiFi Sense is the antithesis of privacy and security, you should allow it if you are naive or an MS worshipper or both. Should you upgrade from Win8(.1)? For sure... Should you upgrade from Win7? I'd say if it aint broke dont fix it. I'm personally glad that Win10 finally allows me to buy laptop again, laptop that works and not just a toy. I want a keyboard and a mouse with my computer and Win10 finally lets me have it again. People who want to smear their screens with their fingers seem to be happy with Win10 too, none of my business though. If Win10 had not come out I'd be scavanging refurb laptops with Win7, thank goodness I don't have to.Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Microsoft is apparently doing its best to make sure it is broken. Here is a list I found of patches to avoid, due to things like added in "telemetry" (spying) or bug introduction:KB3075249, KB3080149, KB2505438, KB2670838, KB2952664, KB2976978 (8 only), KB3021917, KB3035583, KB3075249
Notmyusualid - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
Thanks, but cleared out a couple of those already.Zak - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
"for most people, they will make the trade-off of less privacy if it means an improved experience. The textbook example here is advertising, where in order to deliver relevant ads to the user (or rather not serve them useless ads) the ad service must be able to learn something about the user and their preferences" -- Are you out of your mind??? Trade my privacy for relevant ads? You ought to be on drugs or MS is paying you to post this drivel. Nobody likes to be blasted with ads, relevant or not. If they system really wants to learn something it is this: NOBODY LIKES ADS.jameskatt - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
The absolutely WORSE thing about Windows 10 is now much it is tracking you - tracking the websites you read, the apps you use, tracking how much time you spend on a web page, etc. And you cannot turn this tracking off. It is totally creepy that Windows includes so much spying.Some parents may love this in that they get a monthly report from Microsoft of every webpage and app their children use.
But for the vast majority of users and parents, this is simply unacceptable.
Someone has to give us a privacy utility to block Microsoft from tracking us so heavily.