TL;dr New Samsung phone syncs 280GB of photos to OneDrive that in turn fills the laptop storage . At some point something has become corrupted with attempting to log in and change password when the laptop disk is full.
Yes, all of that happened but it happened because Samsung uploaded the photos without clear authorization and Microsoft downloaded all of the files without authorization after One Drive was automatically reinstalled after the user deliberately removed it.
The thing is you do get the choice to sync the account, it’s not automagic, so the writer saying “she didn’t authorize it” is actually false. Generalizing here but most non-tech literate people generally sort to just pressing “next next yes” on everything so it’s not unlikely she’s simply authorized it without actually realizing it. Same with Onedrive sync, it’s not automatic, you get the option but it’s very simple to opt out during OOBE or when prompted in Windows, but most people simply look at it and say “that sounds neat”.
That said the OOBE on new Samsungs is absolutely atrocious and I don’t blame her for ending up in this situation. It’s like a 20 step process on the S25 (I have one so I know what it’s like) and I’m definitely not defending the clusterfuck that Windows is. I feel for both of them. I’m just saying there are some inaccuracies.
Thats exactly what dark paterns are: asking „do you want to backup your files?“, instead of transparently asking if you want to „MOVE your files to OneDrive“. Then not providing clear „Yes“ and „No“ buttons. But showing a convenient „Continue“ (or similar) and a scary worded „dont backup“ (or similar). And there are so many times where I deliberately uninstalled Onedrive, Outlook(new) and others, only to find them back in the menu an hour later. Also hate these f**ing questions, where you have the big blue „Yes“ button and only a „ask me later“ to deny. Or you have to find some blue words in the explaining text to click on, like when starting MS-Office on a local account the first time: Big „Login everywhere with MS-Account“ button, and „only MS-Apps“ just in the fine print (not even a way to say „only use MS-Account in Office“)
This is my last Windows laptop.
There’s a massive delay to even open my control panel. Fundamental, easy tasks that I’ve accomplished reliably since Windows XP are no longer reliable. Multiple problems, I have no confidence anything will work.
Think of all the wasted time for so many millions of people around the world
Last week my television started translating programs into Spanish. No fucking reason. Far too much time wasted on a slow menu to fix.
Recently, I could no longer use necessary phone app with no-option utility; due to the latest Apple OS update, it would no longer function. Time for a new phone to replace my few-years-old phone.
A newer car from 2024… long story short, reflecting lights caused camera issues, triggering all sorts of driver vocal alerts like KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD. Off to the dealer. Later, updates change the user interface without warning; it’s like having all of the buttons on your dashboard rearranged spontaneously.
All of these issues are on modern hardware that hasn’t been modified in any way.
My apologies for losing my mind, first world problems. But it’s relentless
I was helping a co worker with a windows issue. Tried opening task manager. Took 30 minutes to open. And during that time we were able to open chrome and browse the web for suggestions on how to fix.
What a load of crap… task manager was always top priority to open and lightweight enough to open fast.
All my computers are now Linux. My next phone is going to be fairphone cuz fuck all this shit.
Ah, Windows and OneDrive. A match made in hell.
I’ve despised them ever since I built a Win11 PC, it was enabled without my consent, immediately stopped me from adding any new files to my Desktop+Documents once it ran out of the pitiful 5 free gigabytes, and promptly deleted all of my data from those folders when I deactivated the “feature”.
That miserable experience, combined with every third update putting me through a setup that employed dark patterns to try to trick me into turning it back on (not to mention my fears that they’d pull the same crap with Recall), was the main thing that caused me to ditch Windows. I don’t like feeling dread every time there’s a new update, assholes.
But the shareholder value!!!111
Face it. Microslop is a malware company now.
Linux is waiting patiently for that woman
Devil’s advocate here: switching to Linux wouldn’t help.
I recently had to set up a public web server for a org that I belonged to. The idea was that I would set everything up in the most secure and unbreakable way I can think of, write documentation on how to do everything, transfer ownership of all the “break glass” credentials and lock my own account once I’m done.
This turned out to be a huge mistake. What was supposed to be some free work for a hobby group turned into a massive pain every day at 3-4am (due to time zone differences)
The person in charge of managing access control couldn’t figure out how wg-easy works. She managed to give her own credentials to EVERYONE who needed access, which obviously didn’t work due to IP conflicts. When pointed out, she modified the IP in every config file, which of course, still didn’t work. It took forever to tell her NOT to share credentials and create new peers for each user.
The biggest problem is some how NOT windows or mac users. There is a single Linux user that is causing the most headaches. When I set up wireguard, I tested on both Linux and Windows, with Linux being what I used. I ran into some minor hiccups with getting split dns to work correctly, but it was relatively easy to fix in Network Manager. I assumed if there are other Linux users they would be able to fix it themselves. Obviously I was wrong.
Said person had DoH enabled in their browser that they didn’t know how to disable, running varieties of “I don’t know” for their network stack, DNS resolver, etc. almost every question for dig, cat /etc/resolv.conf descended into “what’s that?” or completely incorrect commands (e.g. resolving a http url in dig). I could not figure out what the person was running, the person themselves had no idea what was running (I think it was systemd-resolvd, but I still don’t know as of now). Eventually, after 3 workdays of trying to help fix this at 3-4am, I gave up. I can’t help with a personal device belonging to somebody that has no idea what they’re doing.
As for why I’m mentioning this story: switching to Linux wouldn’t help this lady with her problem. There are similar issues on linux that would prevent a login or a graphical session (there was an old work machine that ran VLC, where VLC threw GBs worth of QT errors, eventually causing systemd to crash on reboot when the drive was full). The problem here isn’t just the system, it’s the user. A lot of people seem to be allergic to providing more details than “it’s not working”, “I don’t know” and “I didn’t try anything”. If the general mindset is “I don’t know what’s wrong with no details”, there’s no savings the user from technical problems.
On a side note for “why the hell did I knowingly volunteer to set up a web server for someone else”: the whole project was already 5 months overdue. It was beneficial for everyone for the server to be up asap. Said person in charge didn’t think of anything (dns, hosting, software stack) other than ask a bunch of CS college students to design a Web app for her. Needless to say the students bailed on her (which is probably the best scenario? In terms of maintainability and security concerns). It also only took me 2 weeks to set everything up (lamp stack, K3S, crowdsec, openappsec, wireguard, etc)
The only course of action most Windows users would take at this point is a full reinstallation.
I think most users would either hire someone to reinstall Windows for them or would decide to buy a new laptop. The fun part is that as soon as they log into their MS account after a reload/purchase the sync would happen again and they would be right back where they started.
Weird, I recently bought that same phone and did not have that problem. Why?
“Do you want to transfer your files from another device?”
No.
Just no. I don’t need your help, I can do this myself. Previous phone is backed up to my NAS, I can restore what I want from there.
I see a new phone as an opportunity to leave stuff behind. It’s on the NAS if I REALLY need it.
See…the “problem” with this is that it’s work.
Its not work to say no. Its work for all the stuff leading up to that. You had to think about how you want your files stored, organized, and backed up. You had to think about how you wanted to access it all and from where. Then you had to set all that stuff up to work.
The vast majority of people don’t do this. Partly for not knowing how to but mostly for not wanting to try to figure out a system that works for them.
They just want things to work when they need them and not think about it at any other time. Gee, I wonder what could ever go wrong with that mentality.
And I don’t want to blame the victim here, because the root of this particular story still doesn’t change.
But there is a little bit of self responsibility that needs to be had. If you give big tech all the controls, you are at their mercy to what they do. But to have any semblance of control yourself, you need to take it. Then you have the power to say no.
Very wise. I approve.
Yikes! That was pretty messed up. Goes to show that you can’t really trust Microsoft or Samsungto handle things for you.
[Screaming in Linux, pulling out hair]
2025-09-18
What’s up with the old reposts today?
Edit: And it looks to be just you doing that, @lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com, so what’s up?
Well, I found some nice blogs and enjoyed reading a few articles today on my weekend and I though “maybe, others enjoy those, too”, so I shared 3 of them. They got around 900 upvotes in total, so I think, that was not a bad decision (for me, it’s not about internet points, but about discourse / seeing what others think / strengthen lemmy).
I also couldn’t find past posts of this article in @technology@lemmy.world, so it shouldn’t be a duplicate -> https://reddthat.com/search?q=dark+patterns&type=All&listingType=All&communityId=9232&page=1&sort=TopAll&titleOnly=false
What’s up with the Gestapo investigation on the calendar?
What’s up with the Gestapo investigation on the calendar?
This is also a case where EU still sleeps; that you have to agree to some end user agreement and possibly log-in to some account to even start using your smartphone.
Edit: to clarify, while the vendors services are usually optional (with multiple scary warnings) in the initial setup dialogue you can’t skip, Google’s are not, even if you don’t use the play store.
