Microsoft has been working hard to wedge you into its ecosystem, and it appears to have taken one step further by making OneDrive backups an opt-out feature. OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud drive service, much like Google Drive and iCloud. It comes standard with 5GB of free storage for anyone who signs up for a Microsoft Account, which you’ll likely do from now on, since the company recently turned off the easy bypass to Windows 11’s online setup.
While Apple and Google offer online backups on their devices, these are opt-in, and you can always decline them before either of them starts syncing your device contents. However, Microsoft is irking its users by turning on OneDrive backups by default, as discovered by Neowin, thus anyone who intends to complete a clean Windows 11 install is currently being surprised by OneDrive desktop icons and drive folders on their newly installed operating system.
