Enlarge / Microsoft briefly tested a drop-down survey that you would need to fill out before you could quit the OneDrive app.
Modern versions of Windows have become more annoying as time has gone on, pushing additional Microsoft products and services on users who are just trying to turn on their computers and get something done. Often, as we’ve covered, these notifications and reminders ignore or actively push back against user intent—prompting you to sign up for Microsoft 365 if you already said no, or trying to make you use Edge or Bing after you’ve already installed Chrome.
Microsoft took another step down this path this week when it began testing a new addition to the Windows OneDrive app that would force users to explain themselves when quitting the app. Initially spotted by NeoWin, the survey took the form of a drop-down menu, not unlike the ones you sometimes see when you try to unsubscribe from marketing or fundraising mailing lists.
Until you chose an answer from the drop-down, the “quit” button would be grayed out, preventing you from actually closing OneDrive.
This was an escalation from the previous behavior, which would ask you if you were sure before allowing you to quit but allowing you to actually click the “quit” button without interacting with any other menus. The old prompt was an explanation; the newer one was an imposition.
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Enlarge / The former (and current) prompt was more informational and would allow you to click the quit button without further interaction.
Andrew Cunningham
For its part, Microsoft told The Verge that the new prompt was a test that was only rolled out to a subset of OneDrive users and that the change has been reverted as of a couple of days ago.
“Between Nov. 1 and 8, a small subset of consumer OneDrive users were presented with a dialog box when closing the OneDrive sync client, asking for feedback on the reason they chose to close the application,” reads Microsoft’s statement. “This type of user feedback helps inform our ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of our products.”
Reverted or not, the OneDrive prompt is of a piece with other things Microsoft does to encourage the usage of Edge, Bing, OneDrive, Microsoft 365, Game Pass, and its other services in Windows. You can always choose to avoid this kind of thing by declining to sign in to OneDrive or by uninstalling the app entirely. But it’s just one more annoying default you need to change to make sure that modern Windows stays out of your way.
Listing image by Microsoft
