Microsoft never learns, IT admins rage as a new OneDrive app invades Windows 11

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Microsoft never learns, IT admins rage as a new OneDrive app invades Windows 11 and keeps coming back when you remove it

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As Windows Latest first reported, Microsoft is quietly installing "OneDrive Photos" on PCs, and our tests show that it’s tied to the OneDrive sync client, which is already pre-installed on Windows. Initially, I assumed that only consumers would be getting the app, but it turns out that it’s being pushed to enterprise customers as well.

Windows Latest spoke to IT admins and found that Microsoft is forcing the OneDrive Photos app onto enterprise PCs, including those that use Microsoft Intune. Worse, OneDrive Photos works only with a personal Microsoft account, so Windows 11 Enterprise installations are now stuck with an app they cannot even use.

"Microsoft never learns," an angry IT admin told Windows Latest. "We manage hundreds of PCs using Intune, and all had this new ‘OneDrive Photos’ entry in the Start menu. How many mistakes will it take before they realize we do not want random apps across our organizations?"

"This app doesn’t work with Entra accounts," one admin told me. "Also, you can’t remove it without removing OneDrive entirely, as it’s somehow tied to the sync client we use across our organization. Unless Microsoft wants us to dump OneDrive and this is bait, I do not see why it’s being forced onto PCs without an MSA."

There are dozens of similar complaints on Reddit and other forums, and the number is only increasing because nobody likes it when Windows slips in an app they never installed.

I’ve never worked at or with Microsoft, but as someone who has used Windows for decades and interacted with hundreds of businesses heavily invested in the ecosystem, I’ve learned one thing: Windows users do not like apps or settings being added or changed without their knowledge.

What is OneDrive Photos for Windows 11?

OneDrive Photos for Windows 11 is actually OneDrive.com’s Gallery section, which means it’s yet another glorified web wrapper. I tried OneDrive Photos on my PC because it was automatically added to the Start menu, and it even outranked Microsoft Photos for "Photos" in Windows Search results.

By default, OneDrive Photos has access to all the photos stored on your PC and indexes almost everything it can quickly find. In a way, it’s similar to how traditional media players worked. They’d find all the videos on your local storage and filter them by date or name, so you could play what you wanted. It does the exact same thing.

Unlike traditional web apps, OneDrive Photos is actually quite well built. It has a Windows 11-like Acrylic design for the context menu and does not take up a huge amount of resources, as RAM usage stays under 1GB on a system with 32GB of RAM.

I’ve been using OneDrive Photos for a few days now, and I don’t exactly hate it, but I also don’t see the point, even as somebody who syncs everything to OneDrive.

OneDrive Photos app UX

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Windows already comes with a Photos app, which allows you to view your OneDrive and even iCloud photos. You can also view OneDrive photos directly in File Explorer. Unless Microsoft is planning to replace the Microsoft Photos app with the web-based OneDrive Photos in the future, I do not see any point in this app.

OneDrive Photos has some exclusive features, such as "Moments," which randomly surfaces your previous photos. There’s another feature called "People," which uses AI to club similar faces, just like the Samsung Gallery app. This is optional, and you need to opt in.

IT admins rage as Microsoft...

windows onedrive photos microsoft never password

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