Today I am binning Microsoft

[Louis Balfour]

For some time I seem to have been battling MS’s attempts to sell me cloud storage.

Even documents saved to “this PC” were seemingly being saved to OneDrive. Try and save anything from a MS app and… OneDrive. Try to turn off OneDrive and everything went wobbly.

Today, in an attempt to recover what I thought were locally saved documents I seem to have reset my PC. This was by accessing what was previously system restore.

Nothing Microsoft seems to be easy to use anymore and all they want to do is sell storage and online services.

I still have a local backup of documents and MS seems to have saved a rudimentary version of those not yet backed up. My emails are on Outlook on my phone.

I am going to go to the Apple Store and buy a desktop machine later today. That will be a thirty year Microsoft relationship finished.

I want to keep my 3 screen setup and basically plug in an Apple box where the Windows one is. What is the current best buy? I will take the advice of the Apple sales chap, but having some advance idea would be helpful.

TIA.

[Mr Pointy]

That's an odd reaction: why not learn how to set up your PC first? You don't have to use Onedrive & if you are it's because you don't know how to avoid it.

[CoolHands]

Funnily enough I think most ms products have improved in recent years compared with the 90s or 2000s. Although the excel / 365 thing is a bit annoying

[sjg]

Oh you're going to love iCloud

Mac Studio starting at £2100 is the cheapest desktop Mac that supports 3 displays. But only one HDMI port, so the others will need to be USB-C/Thunderbolt or need adaptors.

[mikef]

Louis Balfour said:

I am going to go to the Apple Store and buy a desktop machine later today. That will be a thirty year Microsoft relationship finished.

I want to keep my 3 screen setup and basically plug in an Apple box where the Windows one is. What is the current best buy? I will take the advice of the Apple sales chap, but having some advance idea would be helpful.

If it's a desktop (non-laptop) that you're after, then the Mac Mini M2 Pro supports 3 monitors (the base M2 Mac Mini only supports 2)

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102194

Or a Mac Studio

If it's a laptop, you'll need the MacBook Pro line, not the MacBook Air. You can drive 3 Monitors with the M2/M3 Max CPU - otherwise it's 2 monitors plus in-build display

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT213503

As noted, only one HDMI port so either USB-C monitors or HDMI-to-USB-C cables (or daisy-chain with USB-C)

[boyse7en]

I've got a Mac Studio, running two screens rather than three, but it can do it.

I don't use iCloud, and to be fair the computer never really mentions it after it has been set up (you have to set up an iCloud account when you first set up the computer.

[C69]

Be prepared OP, the Apple sales chap might suggest upgrading from iCloud to iCloud+ for a reasonable monthly fee.

Surely properly configuring your existing PC is a better way to solve the problem?

[mikef]

sjg said:

Mac Studio starting at £2100 is the cheapest desktop Mac that supports 3 displays

Mac Mini M2 Pro is the cheapest desktop Mac option (but don't skimp on RAM or SSD capacity, they aren't upgradeable)

I'm driving two 4K monitors and a Dell ultra wide from my Mac Mini M2 Pro (£1,599 with 16GB and 1TB SSD)

Edited to add: best New Year's resolution ever

Edited by mikef on Wednesday 3rd January 10:38

[ARHarh]

So why do you think, if you can't set up windows to not use one drive you are going to be able to set up an Apple environment in such a way that they are not trying to sell you all kinds of services?

All the major companies, Apple, Google, Microsoft or any other you care to name are just working there way to getting you bought into their services, in such a way it is difficult to get out of before they start to ramp up charges. All these things cost money to support and buying a windows key every 5 years is not really going to cover the costs.

My advice, get a NAS, install Linux on your PC, find open source versions of all the programs you use and bask in the glory you don't need to give these outfits access to everything you produce.

[Fore Left]

I quite like OneDrive. I have all my files on my laptop and a copy in the cloud. This means I can access them from anywhere. My only gripe is that the 365 app on my phone has zero security (unlike the OneDrive app) meaning anyone with access to my phone can access my files (workaround is to put it in a secure folder).

I don't know if it still is, but it used to be pita to set up as you needed to change the location of the Documents / Pictures / etc. folders to the OneDrive equivalents (there's a tab in properties). I'd hope it's automatic these days.

However it is very easy to stop using it. Instructions here if the op would rather do that than splash out £2k+ on a Mac that err, syncs to the cloud.

CoolHands said:

Funnily enough I think most ms products have improved in recent years compared with the 90s or 2000s. Although the excel / 365 thing is a bit annoying

What's that then? I'm still using Office 2016

ETA; instructions here on how to set it up properly.

Edited by Fore Left on Wednesday 3rd January 10:48

[snuffy]

You could simply change your default save location to "Computer", and then it wont save to OneDrive unless you specifically tell it otherwise:

[Hedobot]

There is absolutely no reason to use one drive if you dont want to.

Just save and backup locally like we have been doing for years.

Its just the current trend with the big houses wanting to flog you something.

Try Zorin Linux... free and simple to use

[TonyToniTone]

Maybe easier to uninstall onedrive

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-of...

[MrBen.911]

I've also used Windows for around 30 years, but bought a Macbook a couple of years ago which I use in addition to Windows desktop. I'm quite IT literate, and I love the Macbook but do still find some actions less than automatic, where my muscle memory is still based on many years of Windows use.

In the nicest possible way, if you are struggling with disabling Onedrive, I would not recommend switching to a different OS. Instead, I would suggest getting some assistance to setup your PC as you want it. Even if you pay for a local computer shop to assist you, it will cost way less than buying something that you will likely also need support with.

[anonymous-user]

I detest Microsoft products and have done for years. But in industry you're cutting your throat to not go with the flow. I tried an alternative to outlook for a while but it was far worse so had to return. Now we have the constant battle with Microsoft pushing Teams and OneDrive. We went for WebEx over teams and while some clients moan, it's far more stable. As for OneDrive, we use Egnyt which, so far, has been great. Once it's set up it's like having another local drive, you'd never know it's cloud based. I removed OneDrive from all the PCs and we're good.

Plus, you can still buy stand alone word/ excel/ etc. as we don't use 365 either.

[sgrimshaw]

Something changed with OneDrive in December.

It decided EVERYTHING was to be backed up to OneDrive and deleted all the local copies.

Took bloody hours to sort it out, and I still don't trust it.

Whenever I create a new MS document, it wants to back it up to OneDrive .... even though it is set to "Save to Computer by default"

Edited by sgrimshaw on Wednesday 3rd January 11:19

[FlyingPanda]

You say you're binning Microsoft, but switching to a Mac is not (necessarily) binning Microsoft - it's just binning Windows.

I am a Mac fan, and use a Mac Studio (M1 Max 10-core CPU 32-core GPU 64GB/1TB HD) which I think is fabulous, but I still run MS Office because it just becomes too much of a headache not to. I'd think again about what you're looking to achieve, there are almost certainly better ways...

[2Btoo]

ARHarh said:

My advice, get a NAS, install Linux on your PC, find open source versions of all the programs you use and bask in the glory you don't need to give these outfits access to everything you produce.

Hedobot said:

Try Zorin Linux... free and simple to use

This would be my advice as well, but it's not (quite) for the faint-hearted. While the various forms of Linux are very easy to use, setting up a three-screen rig could be more than a bit of a headache if it's your first dip into the world of *nix. OP, if you are happy with a steep learning curve and have a couple of days spare to get things working then this could be a really good option, and will not cost a penny. But if it's a machine which you rely on for any reason whatsoever then tread carefully.

FWIW I binned MS entirely about 15 years ago and am entirely happy the decision, but the transition wasn't as smooth as simply buying a new PC with all the software ready-installed.

[mmm-five]

FlyingPanda said:

You say you're binning Microsoft, but switching to a Mac is not (necessarily) binning Microsoft - it's just binning Windows.

I am a Mac fan, and use a Mac Studio (M1 Max 10-core CPU 32-core GPU 64GB/1TB HD) which I think is fabulous, but I still run MS Office because it just becomes too much of a headache not to. I'd think again about what you're looking to achieve, there are almost certainly better ways...

Also, if you're a heavy Microsoft Office user, then you'll find the Mac version (on an Mac Studio in my case) is not as snappy, is noticeably slower in Excel's case, is feature-incomplete, and uses 2 lots of menu bars + ribbon (instead of a single menu bar and ribbon in Windows).

They're only little things, but tend to make me turn on the Windows machine instead of the Mac when I need to do 'Office' stuff.

BTW, I don't use OneDrive at all on any of my own devices, but am forced to use it on the work laptop...but even then everything saves locally with the OneDrive version being the 'copy'.

Windows:


Mac:

Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 3rd January 11:33

[Louis Balfour]

Hedobot said:

There is absolutely no reason to use one drive if you dont want to.

Just save and backup locally like we have been doing for years.

:

For months I’ve manually selected “save to this PC” but it seems that actually stuff was still at least backing up to OneDrive. Some documents were saving there even when I selected otherwise.

I had not realised that what appeared to be my PC desktop was in fact OneDrive. I only became suspicious when pasting something on there ceased to be immediate.

When I turned off OneDrive the lack of backing up added a red X to every document.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I an knocking on a bit. But I am educated to degree level from a decent uni, can run businesses and am basically literate. If I find this stuff difficult I am not the problem. I am consoled by the fact that one of my children is having similar MS issues and they are quite techy.

My iPhone is easy to use. My wife’s Mac notebook is great, hence why I am going to Apple today. But I won’t buy anything today.

Coincidentally it is 30 years to the week since I got my first PC. It had Windows 3.1 on it. It was logical, it worked and it was easy to use. A complete contrast to the W10.