Microsoft now asks users to provide a reason for closing the OneDrive app on Windows from a list, including “I don't know what OneDrive is”
A few weeks ago, we reported an odd discovery in Microsoft Edge: a poll asking users to explain their decision to download Chrome.
Context & Ripple Effects
This report captures a short-lived attempt to collect abandonment feedback from a Windows-integrated cloud service. Microsoft quickly said it would stop asking for that feedback when users quit the app, a rapid reversal of the exit survey.
The episode fits a longer tension around OneDrive’s place in Windows: later coverage described automatic folder backup during Windows 11 setup, while Microsoft has also adjusted Windows browser behavior for EEA users under the DMA.
First-order effects
- Users who encountered the prompt were asked to explain an attempt to close OneDrive, turning a routine app exit into a product-feedback interaction.
- Microsoft gained a direct signal about why users disengage from OneDrive, but the subsequent decision not to ask on quit limited that feedback channel.
Second-order effects
- The backlash and quick retreat make similarly prominent retention prompts riskier for Microsoft product teams, especially where Windows distribution makes the service feel bundled rather than chosen.
- OneDrive onboarding and backup flows become the more consequential places to measure adoption, since quit-time surveys can themselves create friction and negative attention.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, operating-system vendors will face greater pressure to distinguish useful cloud integration from coercive default-setting and retention design.
- The later DMA-related changes to Edge suggest that product-distribution practices may increasingly vary by region as user-choice and competition rules constrain platform prompts.
The trend: This is one data point in the widening scrutiny of how platform owners use operating-system integration, defaults, and prompts to retain users in adjacent services.