In a move that could redefine how millions work, Microsoft is steering Word users toward the cloud, sparking debates over convenience, control, and the future of local storage.
Microsoft Word logo in Windows 11 Search. Word and OneDrive just got a lot closer. (Image credit: Windows Central) Microsoft held a special OneDrive and Copilot event today where it announced a number of new features for the cloud-storage service. Buried in the announcements is one change that Microsoft is soon making to Word that might ruffle some feathers among those who are still pushing back against OneDrive and the cloud.
“Starting today, new documents in Word desktop on Windows (Insiders) now save directly to OneDrive, with autosave enabled,” says Microsoft. This means that creating new documents in Word in the future will automatically save said documents to your OneDrive storage, with autosave enabled from the get-go.
The change is designed to make it easier for users to back up and access their documents across devices, but some might find Word attempting to automatically upload documents to the cloud by default to be a privacy concern. Many will likely not even notice that Word’s behavior has changed, as the entire saving and backup process is automatic.
and i flipped the switch to libreoffice long ago.
microsoft office has been bloated slow garbage for quite a while now. my condolences for people forced to use it.
I switched too but I would be lying if I said it is easy. The muscle memory and expectations are there for office, I hate them but it is hard for people to leave them.
OneNote stopped working for me because of some OneDrive connectivity issue. It wouldn’t give me the option to just save locally
Rather than fight with it, I just stopped using it. There are other note taking programs
It’s no a privacy issue to me, it’s usability. My harddrive is always there and connected. The internet and OneDrive are not. More than anything else, availability is the #1 thing I need with basic office applications
Before I got really into FOSS, there was a glitch at my college which revoked my Office365 licence. I switched to LibreOffice and never looked back, even when the glitch was patched.
Isn’t onedrive a paid feature? What if you don’t pay for it?
If it’s like Google, they give you a seemingly generous amount of storage for free. Then they causally switch where you are saving everything to their cloud (one drive, Google drive) and then, if they have done their math right, a few years later you start getting polite prompts to upgrade your storage so you don’t lose all your stuff. Usually by then you are invested enough that spending the time pulling everything back from there and storing it locally seems hardly worth the effort when it only costs $3 a month or whatever to quadruple your storage and kick the can down the road.
Rince and repeat
Apple does the same with icloud storage-many apps use the space to back up their data.
Google does the same with gmail and Google drive- your emails fill the space in your cloud.
If anything, MS are behind on this particular enshittification
The change is designed to make it easier for users to back up and access their documents across devices
Bullshit. The change is so microsoft can mine more data to feed openai.
I feel like it’s more direct than that. They want more OneDrive subscriptions. Cloud storage is absurdly profitable
Time to start saving ai poisoning documents
Jokes on them, I use AI for all my text writing anyway.
That’s clearly for Copilot to scan all your documents for “indexing” without your consent
Is it even possible for regular person to get a an enterprise license of windows?
Seems like of this is intentional to funnel people into OS that spies and steals.
check out massgrave.dev
Ohh wow… Looks very interesting. Thank you
Try Linux and LibreOffice.
and Collabora Office on mobile devices!
Daily driver for the last 10+ years!
On it
I’ve heard that there is a mass grave one can visit where you can find information about obtaining and activating enterprise versions.
there is an ancient spell that will help you:
india romeo mike space hotel tango tango papa sierra colon slash slash golf echo tango dot alpha charlie tango india victor alpha tango echo delta dot whisky india november space pipe space india echo xray
Goto ebay (cover your mouth and nose)
Is this actually a valid strategy?
Its implied consent just like when a woman looks at you, duh.
But they’ve been doing that for ages. I had to change it more than a year ago.
Yeah, WTF, this guy just used his computer for the first time in 2 years?
“All your files are belong to us”
Sounds like robbery our data. Fact is we hear about data breaches all the time. Don’t allow this for your personal data.
The current US admin cannot be trusted not to force Microsoft to handover your data and use it against you.
It will be done before it gets to court.
It really is.
There are laws against going into someone’s garden and picking their fruit, because fruit is valuable produce. This is slightly different, they invite you into their website, then they steal your valuable data for their commercial purposes without paying you for it.
Yet another reason to use alternatives to Microsoft.
Tell that to people who have to use certain software that only works with Office for work.
Even more fun in my case: for security reasons I am not allowed to save my work in any cloud.
Oh no! Guess I better continue to use Libre Office instead.
And Collabora Office on mobile devices :)
Meh. That’s why LibreOffice exists.
They did this already with Excel, and broke a lot of macros. Also changed how it could use IE for automation, and of course there’s no way to convert it to Edge. If Microsoft didn’t have 99% of the business world already tied up in their stuff they’d go out of business soon for the stupid things they break of their own products.
Congratulations, you’ve just won the play stupid games and win stupid prices game.
No reason to complain, your documents can now be handed over to the authorities quickly and efficiently without any inconvenience to you, and we will also use them to train AI.
In the near future:
You can now open all your documents from OneDrive for the low price of 10 cent per document per time you open it. Also you don’t have to worry about where to store anymore, it’s all completely locked in to Microsoft formats, so you can’t really move it to another platform anyway.It seems like every new day has a new reason to remind me why I’m glad I ditched Microsoft.
