[quietbritishjim]

"Your OneDrive data..."

No, it's not my OneDrive data. What an infuriatingly click-bait title.

It's OneDrive data for individaul user accounts at organisations that are unlicensed (probably, as the article says, for people that have left).

[Double_a_92]

I'm also unsure what they wanted Microsoft to do. Just store data that apparently doesn't belong to anyone anymore forever?

[hparadiz]

OneDrive turns itself on after an update so what you think is local data can easily become cloud data. Then while you're not paying attention to a long running system they quietly delete it. Then folks like you come out of the woodwork to defend them. It's hilarious.

[quietbritishjim]

What system would still be storing this locally long after the user has left the company?

The second half of your comment is bordering on a personal attack and not very helpful.

[hparadiz]

You are the example I was pointing out. At no point did I say anything about a company account. This happens on all windows machines. You can for example login to a machine acting as a server simply to use the Microsoft store to install something only to have it start syncing your files to that machine or even intermingle them and then force you to go through a tedious clean up process.

I have seen grandparents accidently lose all their files because they didn't know their files were being synced and then when they removed the Microsoft account from their machine suddenly their files are missing. Situations where they were told by support to logout / login only to lose all their data. These people take weeks or months to finally get someone's attention about the problem irl and these are precisely the types of people who will now be losing data because of the cavalier attitude from the so called experts.

[quietbritishjim]

That sounds awful and it's indefensible.

But it's not the subject of this article. Making this particular change sound like a problem, when it isn't (as far as I can tell), only makes it harder to understand where there are genuine issues.

[Double_a_92]

Then the actual issue is that OneDrive syncs deactivated (empty) accounts to your system, deleting the offline files as well..?

[hparadiz]

I've seen all sorts of situations. The problem is that after updates OneDrive tends to turn itself on or enable syncing when it was previously disabled without telling you. Or you use a Microsoft account to install something through their store and bam suddenly the local drive is intermingled with yours. It's a mess precisely because it's built in.