OneDrive - Attempting to bypass it

So this may not be the correct Forum, but. . . I'm sure someone will let me know if it's not.

With Win 7 I'm accustomed to relocating all my special folders (Documents, Pictures, etc.) out of my user directory onto my regular data drive - i.e., 'Location'. This has worked well for me, and I manage my own system data archives and backups.

Just installed Win 10 and it's doing a whole bunch of crap I don't want it to do. This is aside from the well advertised privacy issues people have mentioned. My PC is a workstation - social media plays a 0.1% role in its daily operation.

1) The default folders I mentioned for the most part are located in OneDrive, so Win 10 is forcing me to use that cloud storage by not letting me relocate those default folders out of OneDrive. I'm very selective about what I want stored in the cloud, and I already use different cloud storage for my professionally shared files/folders. So I disabled OneDrive at startup but it still exists in my user directory.

2) This morning I noticed it was doing some kind of offsite data backup for Edge. I already pretty much disabled Edge, I use Firefox and Chrome with different search engines.

I really want to get control of my system, and I'm wondering if I should have purchased an Enterprise version of the OS in stead of the standard Win 10 Pro?

You got the main idea, and that is shutting down OneDrive. Maybe I use it later, but I don't like the level of integration.

So I'll give that a shot.

Thanks for the quick response.

essenbe said:

I may have misunderstood exactly what you want to do, but this will disable one drive. Enable or Disable OneDrive Integration

Moving your user folders (documents, pictures, music ect) works exactly the same in Windows 10 as it does in Windows 7. I move my user folders the same way you described.

I use Dropbox for my professional file sharing. I'm retired and work out of my home office doing CAD design and 3d architectural rendering on my new workstation which I just built (retired my old Z97 workstation). Had OneDrive been avilable prior to 2012, I might have found a use for it.

(SPOILER ALERT: Rant getting off in the weeds)

I'm really late to the Win 10 game, and you may wonder why, maybe not. I didn't even know about this OneDrive issue until a couple days ago, but it's things like this that's prevented me for so long. I absolute love Win 7 - it's everything I need and nothing more. The only reason I've upgraded (if you can call it that - more like side-graded) is some of the processing tech is a little better, and the applications I'm using work better overall. On the other hand, Win 10 seems so sluggish and bloated - it's almost like 25% of my brand new upgraded processor capacity was drained away when I switched to 10. I think part of it may be the touch-screen integration, but I have no way of knowing if that's true.

I have a fundimental issue with OneDrive integration within the core OS, particularly the way M$ has done it. It bothers me that, by default, M$ has folks storing their files, which likely contain intimate, personal information - not on their computer (like they make be inclined to believe) - but elsewhere.

(END OF RANT)