[sitharus]

Every time my Windows gaming PC updates it nags me about setting up backups to OneDrive.

I cannot install Windows without a Microsoft account unless I apply work-arounds.

It constantly offers Office 365, even adding dummy icons to the start menu.

There are adverts on the login screen.

To be fair I installed Bazzite there, but for a laptop I cannot find an equivalent device at the same price point even ignoring the need for linux drivers.

[dangus]

Mine does not nag me about OneDrive or backups. OneDrive is not even installed. If I search my start menu for OneDrive, nothing even comes up.

Sure, you can't install Windows without a Microsoft account, but realistically a Mac is far less useful if you don't do the same thing. If you don't sign in with an Apple ID you've got zero iPhone integration, for example. I would imagine that 95% of Mac users are signed in to their Apple ID.

Signing in to an account to use commercial software doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'd rather sign in to my account than deal with entering a product license key and needing to keep track of it.

I have not been offered Office 365 since after the first install.

There are not adverts on my login screen, it's completely blank. Change your settings.

These sales tactics are not unique to Windows, Mac subscriptions are upsold in the system settings and via notifications. They do go away and stay away but they are there when you buy the system.

[Shadowmist]

Even after saying no to OneDrive and doing all I can to remove it, it tends to randomly come back months later and will automatically start uploading my desktop and documents folder to the cloud.

Edit: I even specifically bought the Pro version hoping to be able to shut some of this off.

[AndroidKitKat]

It's not worth the hassle, but for the Windows machines in my house I set up Windows Server and have all the machines provisioned to an Active Directory domain where I turn off all the crap via Group Policy. You can get by with just editing Group Policy for a standalone Windows Pro copy, but for more than one machine I really didn't want to fiddle with having to update each machine's policy whenever Microsoft does something stupid.

[dangus]

This literally does not happen. Are you on Windows 10? It doesn't happen in 11. It is fully uninstalled. If I search the Start Menu for OneDrive it doesn't even show up.

[scoodah]

It very much does happen. I’m one 11. It seems like every time it updates I get the “let’s finish setting up your computer” screen that asks me to setup one drive.