Windows 10: Intrusive OneDrive installation, hijacking of folder paths.

Fed up with stupid Microsoft's aggressive, intrusive practices and this is a well known issue specifically with OneDrive being reinstalled without consent, hijacking folder paths in Outlook local and file explorer, with no way to reverse it.I've reinstalled windows 11 clean, opened onedrive, clicked "unlink this device" option, uninstalled onedrive, rebooted. Same issue.Even this error when I try to reset folder path for Documents folder to default:Can't move the folder because there is a folder in the same location that can't be redirected. Access is denied. What to do? I hate microsoft, st

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OneDrive is hijacking Win10 users

I have recently installed Win 10 1803 on a new PC. By default the system use my OneDrive folder to contain documents.

This is a very intrusive and inconsiderate move as a user's document folder can contain lots of files and easily break one's free OneDrive quota. It totally messed up my OneDrive use behavior and I have to take extra steps to move my user folder away from
OneDrive.

I'm not going to use OneDrive for personal file storage and moving to alternative services in future.

What's funny is: I spent a few minutes to find the "OneDrive" topic in the forum's category list and failed. It seems no one has a clue what's happening to this service...

 

Avoiding the intrusion of "OneDrive" folder in fresh Windows 10 install

I have a Windows 10 laptop that is 4 years old. Yesterday I put a new solid state C: drive in it an re-installed Windows 10. So this is a newer version of Windows 10 than I had originally. (This one is 10.0.17763 Build 17763, AKA RS5 1809.)

A number of things seem to have changed in the setup of Windows. When installing it this time, I think I was forced to enter a "Microsoft Account" email address. I tried to skip this step, but I couldn't find a way to avoid it.

The first 5 letters of my email address are "jeffh". When I put a text file named "find_me.txt" on the desktop, the path to that file is:

Previously, that file's path would have been the far more elegant:

I am really puzzled and annoyed by that "OneDrive" in the path. I don't want to use OneDrive. The first thing I did when the computer was up-and-running was uninstall OneDrive. But by then my "Desktop" folder would have alrady been in this freaking OneDrive folder.

I am also annoyed by that "jeffh" in the path. I never said I wanted a username of "jeffh". If I had been asked to provide a username, it would have been "me".

Maybe I should just relax in give in to these Microsoft paradigm changes, but I just want my old setup back. Is there any way to avoid this intrusion of "OneDrive", and the required Microsoft email address, in a fresh install of this newer Windows 10?

 

OneDrive hijacks folders

I just want to let the developers at Microsoft know how truly disgusted I am with the changes that now allow OneDrive to hijack my files and folders. Having OneDrive hijack My Documents folder has created a massive headache getting games and programs installed that use it as the default location. Even after disabling the auto-backup option and uninstalling the program, I could not access those folders. I literally had to go in and use the registry editor to change the default location. Thankfully I am capable, but for most users who aren't tech savvy, this is a huge problem. I have since started using Google Drive to backup my files and folders as it's much more user friendly. Windows used to be user friendly, easy to change settings and create an environment that works for the individual user. In every new version and update, you have strayed so far away from that. You have more bloatware and install programs that I never wanted. I prefer to have the option to install programs and features, rather than have them shoved down my throat and creating a very unfriendly user experience. So, thanks but no thanks, I will not be using OneDrive now, or in the future.