March 6, 2020
Dear Everyone:
I am currently engaged in an epic battle with an evil entity known as
OneDrive, which is attempting to take over the world.
OneDrive exists “in the Cloud”, like a self-appointed deity, where it
watches everything I do and copies all my documents into its own
dominion. That was not the
original intent, of course.
It never is.
Microsoft conceived of OneDrive as a convenience for Windows Users.
The idea was that you could create a document, like this very
one, on your local computer, saving it to OneDrive.
Then, if you happened to be away from home and wanted to revise
the document from another computer, or tablet, or your current
smartphone, you could do it because the document would be “in the
Cloud”.
At first, I thought it was a great idea.
When I started a new computer, I could simply copy all my files
from the old computer to OneDrive and then copy them down to the new
computer. But it didn’t
work. For some reason, each
computer seemed to have its own version of OneDrive.
So, I went back to using a USB Flash Drive to move files from one
computer to another.
In the meantime, I set up dedicated Flash Drives to hold all my
photograph and music files separate from the computer.
This avoided a whole lot of copying files again and again.
Another reason for OneDrive, in the beginning, was to protect Users from
failing to back up their files.
It all happened automatically, while the User wasn’t even
looking. That way, if you
messed up a file, or something else happened to it, you could always
“restore” it from the backup.
Assuming that you could get to it.
Connectivity is not always assured.
That’s one drawback.
Another is the response time from OneDrive.
When the User clicks “Save”, the computer goes
“processing…processing…processing…processing…”
This is one reason why I prefer to keep all my files on the local
hard drive. Nevertheless,
Microsoft insists on setting up OneDrive every time I get a new
computer.
Happily, I continued to ignore OneDrive and just manage my files on
whichever computer I was using for whatever purpose.
The main computer, Sebastian, sits in the living room and does
the most work during the day.
Ganymede sits in the bedroom and holds certain health files that
I update each morning. For
example, I keep a log of my blood pressure and weight.
Sure, there is a computer somewhere that uploads all the data from the
BP monitor and bathroom scale and the box that sits inside my chest and
watches my heart around the clock.
But I can’t access that data.
I choose to keep my own logs.
And it’s more convenient to keep all that information in the
bedroom.
A few weeks ago, I ordered a new computer to replace Sebastian, who was
over two years old and getting slower and slower in recent weeks.
The new computer, nicknamed “Olivia”, arrived last Friday.
I decided this past Monday that it made little sense to keep “finding”
reasons to delay getting Olivia up and running.
I started the set-up process, identifying myself to Microsoft and
so on and so forth. I even
copied all of Sebastian’s documents via a convenient Flash Drive to
Olivia. I was not concerned
when Olivia required that I launch OneDrive and log into it.
And that was about as much as I could handle in one day.
The next morning, I opened Ganymede up in the bedroom to begin the daily
routine of recording last night’s sleep log and that morning’s weight
and blood pressure readings.
And that’s when I discovered that Microsoft’s much vaunted OneDrive had
decided to replace all the existing files on Ganymede’s hard drive with
other files copied from Olivia the day before.
Apparently, Microsoft Knows Best.
At 5:30 in the morning, there I was screaming at OneDrive about losing
the accumulated information of months and, incidentally causing my blood
pressure to go sky high. In
time, I told myself to calm down because I had a doctor’s appointment
that morning and couldn’t afford the time to try and recover all that
lost data. That would come
later.
In fact, it was quite a bit later that day that I used Microsoft’s Edge
web browser and Good Old Google (GOG) to search for how to shut OneDrive
out of my life forever. In
short order, I discovered that A) I was not the only person who didn’t
want to use OneDrive; and B) that it was quite easy to solve, once you
knew the secret handshake.
I found that I could right-click the OneDrive icon and go to “Settings”.
Once there, I found a link appropriately named “Unlink this PC”.
Naturally, a warning window popped up to ask if I was sure that I
knew what I was doing. I
confirmed my choice and that was that.
Or so I thought.
In the meantime, just in case, I added a step when opening one of my
Ganymede files, to rename it with the current date (i.e., “bp_20200305”
to “bp_20200306”). That way
it couldn’t be accidentally written over with an older file that just
happened to have the same name.
Then this morning, as I was saving one of my health files under a new
name, I discovered that OneDrive had “automatically” linked with
Ganymede again and was busily attempting to move my files up to the
“Cloud” again.
Pesky little menace, that OneDrive.
I can see that this is going to be an ongoing situation of How to Outfox
User Friendly.
I decided to try using a Flash Drive in one of Ganymede’s two USB ports.
Created a folder and copied the health files, and a few others,
to the Flash Drive. So far,
I’ve shut Ganymede down and back up again a few times and, while
OneDrive again links automatically, it hasn’t yet discovered the files
hiding out on the Flash Drive.
So far, so good.
By the way, all you Apple Users, who may be gloating at all this
kerfuffle, rest assured, your time is coming.
Microsoft isn’t the only one who wants to control our universe.
Just ask Skynet.
Love, as always,
Pete
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