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posted by martyb on Friday July 07 2017, @09:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the one-is-not-enough dept.

OneDrive users around the world have been upset to discover that with its latest update, Microsoft's cloud file syncing and storage system no longer works with anything other than disks formatted with the NTFS file system. Both older file systems, such as FAT32 and exFAT, and newer ones, such as ReFS, will now provoke an error message when OneDrive starts up.

To continue to use the software, files will have to be stored on an NTFS volume. While FAT disks can be converted, ReFS volumes must be reformatted and wiped. This has left various OneDrive users unhappy. While NTFS is the default file system in Windows, people using SD cards to extend the storage on small laptops and tablets will typically use exFAT. Similarly, people using Storage Spaces to manage large, redundant storage volumes will often use ReFS. The new policy doesn't change anything for most Windows users, but those at the margins will feel hard done by.

In a rather odd statement made to OnMSFT, Microsoft said that it "discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem—which was immediately remedied." The company's position, apparently, is that OneDrive should always have warned about these usage scenarios and that it's only a bug or an oversight that allowed non-NTFS volumes to work.

Source: Ars Technica


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Friday July 07 2017, @10:01PM (1 child)

    by MrGuy (1007) on Friday July 07 2017, @10:01PM (#536282)

    A similar lesson is that if you're going to rely on a vendor, and that vendor has a proprietary stake in one specific technology, and you want to use a different technology, be wary of assuming that vendor's impartiality, regardless of what they might claim.

    I wouldn't use Apple's iCloud from a Windows machine even if they support it (do they? never checked.) I don't run MS Office apps on my Mac, even though supposedly there are Mac versions that are in theory compatible. I don't trust someone who SELLS me music to HOST my music collection for me for free. Etc.

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  • (Score: 1) by Acabatag on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:15AM

    by Acabatag (2885) on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:15AM (#536411)

    Point of order about Microsoft Office on the Mac:

    Microsoft first produced the Microsoft Office Applications for the Mac and then later ported them over to Windows. Yes, Excel in it's first version was a Mac-only product. And the graphical Microsoft Word that became the Windows titan later on started out on the Mac.

    Microsoft was one of the strongest vendors of applications for the Macintosh in the early years. They made more money per Mac desktop than from PC desktops for a time.

    This isn't intended as a campaign for people to get Microsoft Office for their Mac, just as a historical footnote.