Windows 11 is quietly installing OneDrive Photos | Hacker News Reader

Windows 11 is quietly installing OneDrive Photos

windowslatest.com

53 pointshn_acker18 comments

It's as if Microsoft decided that people who haven't already left Windows either have no choice or just don't care, so they will tolerate everything.

Microsoft is not wrong

A few days ago I installed CachyOS, and I'm in the middle of transferring stuff from Windows. I, who used them all - MS-DOS, 3.11, 95, 98, you name it. I'm tired, boss.

But you're an individual. For businesses it's probably very painful, the OS is buggy, slow, and killing productivity, but the cost to switch is too distruptive for them to do.

I wonder if a Linux advocacy group could offer a deal of "rather than paying MS the next 12 months to remain hostage to them in 12 months' time, pay us whatever you're paying MS for 6 months, and we'll help you transition from MS in a 6-month timeline" (or whatever number is realistic after a consultation). Of course this means paying double for those 6 months (once to MS, and once to the group), but after that the company will be running on free software!

One of the issue is that companies take "free software" as in free beer, not as In freedom, so they pay tens of thousands of dollars to closes source software companies and then won't donate a cent to open source software that they daily.

>For businesses it's probably very painful, the OS is buggy, slow, and killing productivity, but the cost to switch is too distruptive for them to do.

I don't think that's the case now that nearly everything is delivered through a web browser.

Damn it. I guess I have to contact my friends who use Windows to warn them and to be sure that no photo that includes me is exposed to this system.

Make sure nobody uses photos with Apple, Google, or Meta either.

Sorting photos by people is a convenient feature popping up everywhere.

Yes indeed! Fortunately, I've already talked about these things with my friends and family, and they care about and respect me enough to keep images of me out of these services. I just need to be sure they know to exclude me from this one as well.

I think the difference might be that Apple's facial recognition is happening directly on device and not being offloaded elsewhere.

I had not considered that aspect, and now I am very bothered by it.

It’s the OneDrive installing new OneDrive Photos app. It happens on any Windows version, such as Server 2025 that has OneDrive installed.

It isn’t limited to Windows 11.

Oh yay. Now our terminal server can have OneDrive Photos AND Teams installed for every single user profile.

The full title is:

> Windows 11 is quietly installing OneDrive Photos, and it wants to scan your photos for faces if you allow it

Would you like for OneDrive to scan your photos?

Yes

Ask me again in 30 minutes

Yes

Write essay to justify decision to refuse (AI graded, 1000 words minimum, grade A- required to pass)

I’ve switched over to Windows 2021 Enterprise IoT LTSC before I jump to Linux. Just letting it slow burn now.

Is this part of the new focus on quality and respect they announced a couple of months ago, or is that yet to come?

My Android used to nag me to install Onedrive and uhh, enter into a contract with them.

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