Windows 11 users have been getting a new OneDrive app whether they asked for it or not. The problem? Microsoft says it wasn’t supposed to happen. Microsoft has confirmed that its OneDrive Photos app was rolled out to Windows 11 PCs more broadly than intended, including enterprise machines where the app isn’t even designed to work. The company says it is now working on a fix, but there’s an awkward catch: users currently can’t uninstall OneDrive Photos without removing the main OneDrive app too.
OneDrive Photos isn’t an entirely new product. Microsoft first introduced the app to Windows Insiders earlier this year, and it’s still in beta. Starting August 1, however, the app began appearing on consumer PCs and eventually reached many systems with the OneDrive sync client installed.
The app essentially brings the OneDrive web and mobile photo experience to the Windows desktop. It can display photos stored locally on the PC as well as images in OneDrive, while offering features such as search, albums, Favorites and Microsoft’s Moments feature. It is built using Microsoft Edge’s WebView2, meaning much of the experience is essentially a web app running on the desktop.
And here’s the slightly uncomfortable bit: Windows Latest found that the app can have access to photos across the PC even when the user hasn’t signed into a Microsoft account. Users can also prevent OneDrive from scanning specific locations.
The rollout became particularly awkward after OneDrive Photos also appeared on Windows 11 Enterprise PCs managed through Microsoft Intune, even though the app is designed for personal Microsoft accounts. Microsoft has acknowledged the mistake, telling Windows Latest that its new OneDrive Photos experience was rolled out more broadly than intended and that it is working on a fix. The situation is even stranger because the app isn’t distributed as a standalone MSI; instead, the existing OneDrive sync client can download and install it in the background.
This is where things get frustrating for anyone who doesn’t want the new app. Because OneDrive Photos is tied to the main OneDrive sync client, Windows 11 doesn’t currently offer a separate uninstall option. The only straightforward way to get rid of OneDrive Photos right now is to uninstall OneDrive itself from Settings > Apps > Installed apps, then restart the PC.
That’s obviously not ideal for anyone who actually uses OneDrive for syncing files. Removing the main client can also affect its File Explorer integration and shortcuts, meaning users have little reason to uninstall an application they may still rely on simply to get rid of the unwanted Photos component.
Microsoft says this will change. The company is working on controls that will let users remove OneDrive Photos separately from the main OneDrive app. On enterprise PCs managed through Intune, Microsoft says the app will automatically disappear where it isn’t supported. Nonetheless, the whole episode highlights an increasingly familiar Windows frustration: even when Microsoft gets around to making an app genuinely useful, users probably shouldn’t have to discover it because Windows installed it for them first
Speech-to-text apps have flooded the App Store, making it easier than ever to type on our Macs with just our voice. I have previously covered one such app called TypeWhisper. However, there has been a dearth of good text-to-speech models, and most of the good ones are locked behind a subscription.
Ollama, an open-source app that lets you run local AI models on your computer, wants to change that. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and your prompts are never stored or used for training.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).