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 - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
If you are talking about Family Safety, it needs to explicitly be turned on, and it's been there since Vista. And, when you log in, there is a prompt every time letting you know the account is monitored with family safety. This is not new to Windows 10.jameskatt - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
Privacy is a concern. After all, Microsoft IS STORING your data on its servers. And it can EXTRACT THAT DATA in order to send you reports about activities on your computers.So OBVIOUSLY, someone else can gain access to that data - for example the GOVERNMENT, THE NSA, THE FBI, THE POLICE, HACKERS, LAWYERS, etc. Anyone who wants data on you can obtain it straight from Microsoft. Microsoft has built the ultimate tracking system into Windows 10.
Notmyusualid - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
I completely agree.name99 - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
Shorter Brett (and a million other MS fans):"a thousand bugs, limitations, restrictions, and not yet implemented features that, on an Apple OS would be considered utterly unacceptable, are just fine in this context because it's MS'.
I'm glad that MS has (finally) stepped up its game to some extent --- for example I hope the WiFi Sense stuff puts pressure on Apple to get its act together in this area --- but, come on, you know I am right about. Every damn page contains an apology for some problem or other with the OS. MS released this WAYYYY too soon; and unlike Apple they don't even have the excuse that "oh, we had to do it to hit our hardware dates" (an excuse that is wearing very thin with Apple, and if they can't release iOS 9 and OSX 10.11 essentially bug-free, I think it's time to decouple the OS releases from the new phone hardware, starting next year).
Vinchent - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
I think that the key words for Windows 10 are redundancy and inconsistency. Ok, I've installed the new OS over W8 a couple of weeks ago, so it's a bit early to judge any OS whatsover but ""A good beginning makes a good ending".Dear Microsoft, we don't want apps. Do you get it? No apps on desktop machines. By now, 99% of desktop users use their PC only to work or play.
We don't e won't use Cortana, we are faster by using mouse+keyboard.
We will never open an app, we just use the browser for almost anything.
We just use Edge to download Chrome (or whatever). Yeah it's good, but it's too late now.
We are not happy with having 2 Control panels. 99% of the time, if we want to set things up, we will use the classic tools, which are way more powerful.
My dream? When I install the new W10 I'd like to have just 2 options: Baby mode (with apps, cortana, edge) and classic mode (no apps, no redundancy, no garbage).
Ignatzz - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
So how come everybody I know who's upgraded thinks Windows 10 stinks? As for me, it just won't upgrade - it fails every time.But there's also this:
"Windows 7 is used by hundreds of millions of people, but its touch support is practically zero."
Maybe that means there's still a large market for no touch screen. Speaking for myself, I see why you'd want touch screen on a computer that you carry with you, but I have zero interest in it for a home computer. The keyboard simply works better, and getting rid of it offers no real advantage.
Ignatzz - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
I've often said that Windows does a good job with every OTHER operation system. XP was good, Vista was lousy. Windows 7 was good. Windows 8 was lousy.By going from 8 right to 10, they seem to have skipped the good one.
jabber - Saturday, August 29, 2015 - link
Oh anyone who uses the term 'M$' loses all credibility instantly.Be a little more original please. Otherwise you look like 'new kid on the internet'.
cjcox - Monday, August 31, 2015 - link
Article was a bit too "pro Microsoft" without pointing out all of the losses of feature / functionality, especially vs. Windows 7. I know we had to put the Zune software onto our Windows 10 because of all the features lacking in Groove. And the Zune software isn't supported anymore, but still the only full featured product that Microsoft made. Oh well. Microsoft continues to take many steps backwards... hard to figure out what their end goal is. So... Microsoft 10 adds features you likely don't care about, didn't ask for and removes many things you used to use. That's a better summary review.cjs150 - Tuesday, September 1, 2015 - link
cjcox: Having used w10 for several weeks now, I completely agree about Groove - I went back to Windows Media Player.There are good points and bad points in w10 (multiple desktops good, new start menu bad), but it feels slightly faster than w8.1 on my NUC