Slashdot Mirror
Windows 10 Will Use the Cloud To Free Up Disk Space (arstechnica.com)
The next update to Windows 10, due to be released in October, will be smarter about how it frees up disk space and cleans up temporary files. Ars Technica reports: As part of its Storage Sense feature, Windows will be able to automatically remove the local copies of OneDrive files (unless they've been set as always available offline). The operating system will determine which files to remove based on when they were opened: files used more recently than a certain number of days will be retained locally, while those that haven't been used will be replaced with placeholders. The system will remove files until the operating system reckons it has enough free space for normal operation.
Storage Sense will also be able to remove temporary or otherwise unneeded files such as system logs and image thumbnails. It will also be able to remove old files from the download directory. The temporary-file cleanup (which can also remove certain cache files, driver packages, old anti-virus definitions, and more) was previously handled by the Disk Cleanup tool. That tool is now deprecated, as Storage Sense does everything it used to do and more. Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space.
Storage Sense will also be able to remove temporary or otherwise unneeded files such as system logs and image thumbnails. It will also be able to remove old files from the download directory. The temporary-file cleanup (which can also remove certain cache files, driver packages, old anti-virus definitions, and more) was previously handled by the Disk Cleanup tool. That tool is now deprecated, as Storage Sense does everything it used to do and more. Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space.
That's all I need, files magically disappearing from my local media.
Thanks but no thanks.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
From a company that still has not figured out how security works.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Oh, MS knows how security works. Their income security, their relationship security with Big Surveillance.
I've said this before but OS-as-a-service does not work. Windows is currently unsuitable for any serious business use. It's becoming an always-online, uncontrollable and unpredictable data harvesting tool. You simply cannot use it offline anymore and with this "feature" it is now pure garbage.
In the hypothetical world where Comcast imposes tight control and strict bandwidth caps on my SATA bus; while I'm free to purchase copious, low-latency, WAN options from a reasonably competitive market this would be ideal.
As it is, I'm sure 'Cortana guesses which files you don't really need access to right now' will be a hilarious game for the whole family.
...all the Store crap it installed without anyone's permission.
In a world where 14TB hard drives are under $500, 10TB hard drives are under $300, and small hard drives are under $40, and all are much, much faster than internet storage....why the hell would anyone be stupid enough to think this is a good idea?
Even 1TB SSDs are below $150 and good brands at $160. Even for an ultrabook user, you'd have to be an idiot to want this.
This is the best idea since integrating Windows Explorer into Internet Explorer.
Microsoft making a decision like this displays the same sort of arrogance as Apple deleting the headphone port from its iPhones.
Fuck the people who make such asinine narrow-minded decisions, fuck their products, fuck their companies, and fuck the horse they rode in on.
This is why I use Cryptomator. https://cryptomator.org/
I have selective, EncFS-style encryption that is portable and multi-platform. I moved the Cryptomator folders/containers from Dropbox to iCloud, because of the dubious political and surveillance concerns with Dropbox. Dropbox application behaves like a rootkit on Mac, and will stop working on any Linux but plaintext Ext4 FS in Nov 2018.
My Linux machines are replicated using Syncthing for the folders, and Cryptomator again, almost transparently allows encrypted storage for all of the use cases and workflow that I "enjoyed" with the Dropbox spyware.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Look i hate microsoft, i hate windows 10, but I do have to support it. Out of control onedrive files, especially on a multi user computer, is a constant plague. People just dont set their files online only. They just dont. Having the OS manage that for them should have been a feature YEARS ago.
40gb in a teams filestore is like no problem for anyone but me. Now thats replicated to 20 people in a department, wasting all that local storage space and BANDWIDTH. So yes, microsoft finally got around to FIXING an obvious undersight and all you people see is "microsoft" and "cloud" and "delete" and are all like nooope! without actually thinking or knowing what you guys are talking about.
This is a windows admin's dream if you use teams or onedrive, which face it, many companies are moving to for various reasons i wont get into. Most features they put out are ass and break things, and this may be as well, but on paper it would be a HUGE help.
Look at the list of what its deleting. All temp files. We have fileshares, cloud and on premises, so people dont have anything local on their machines. They can be reimaged or stolen or surged. And they need to be cleaned, manually, when their disks fill up with cache files that the OS should be dealing with!
-
Windows 10 already eats WAY too much of my internet connection on its stupid updates. (No I don't need an update of Internet Edge, because I never use it.... where's the stupid "turn updates off" option?) It slows everything down, such that I can't even load Youtube and watch a video until the update is finished.
Now they want to offload tempt files across my line too? Come on! I truly hate this company (and that hatred goes back to 1990).
Microsoft: Please stop sucking. Please treat your users & their computers with RESPECT instead of your personal servants.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
OwnCloud - I control both the client and the server.
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
I don't have a single file in the cloud. Why? Because I know that storing stuff in the cloud means "storing it on someone else's computer". I have enough disk space, and I'm not a selfie-holic, that local storage isn't an issue. I burn stuff I care about to a thumb drive every month or so, and store important stuff to a NAS. A fire at home could wipe out all my data (except maybe for the 64G thumb drive in my pocket), but anything short of that and I'm good. Then again, I sleep naked and if I had a fire I'd look for the cat first, then my pants. YMMV.
How about instead of randomly deleting my personal files off of my personal device, you start moving your own "rarely used" files? C:\Windows\WinSXS is a perennial problem. You can't tell me that you need all that SXS data available at a moment's notice. What about the SoftwareDistribution directory? What about all of your uninstallers and other crap that fills up my Windows directory? How about let's look at moving that stuff to the cloud first, eh?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The biggest pain is having to rely upon third party tools to try and shrink the size of a Windows install. Why not move so many of the bullshit folders into the cloud instead? That way User information can be kept protected and not uploaded, and since every Windows install has the same bullshit folders taking up extra space, why not leave them in the cloud til needed?
Crazy to need external storage to perform a Windows update when it should do everything to shrink itself first before requiring users to move files. I had to work to find spare space on a Surface device when it was trying to update, which had practically nothing on it.
(Which is why it's my only Windows device in the house - well besides VM's of course...)
... all the temporary folders created by programs in the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder hierarchy.
e.g.: Whenever you open a file attachment in Outlook it gets saved into [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\H83V4PYQ], which is not your temp folder [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp] and, despite the [INetCache] in there, this folder does not get touched by cache clean up in Internet Options.
None of this gets cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup Wizard and I doubt this new tool will help with that either.
Let's don't forget that MIcrosoft has been known to (inadvertently one assumes) reset flags to their default values during updates. You might be able to set up a safe, useful configuration. Is it going to stay safe/useful?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Seems like GDPR compliance in the EU is likely to be a problem. I suspect that HIPAA compliance in the US might be a problem for medical data, but I don't know enough about HIPAA to be sure.
This really could be Microsoft's dumbest idea since the $@#%& Registry.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
People trying to work while on an airplane need to learn how to relax and let it go. It's one really great excuse for not working and finally getting some extra sleep and people want to waste that? I was on one flight and once the plane took off the pair in front of me said "ok, let's get started on our presentation". What the hell, finish the presentation before you get on the plane so that it doesn't look like a crappy presentation you cobbled together on a plane.
People just don't know how to relax. We need more slack!
YES! I mentioned this problem in a reply above, but it's annoying enough to repeat: my work PC's Windows folder has expanded to occupy all free space (55%) on the hard drive. Space freed up by moving user files to an external drive was filled up within a week or two. Move all those restore points and installer backups to the cloud!