OneDrive plunge back sync support for Non-NTFS drives; Microsoft discloses why

Tech giant Microsoft recently all of a sudden dropped its OneDrive file sync support for non-NTFS drives, a shift that has seen a lot of complaints from users. Hindering support means that users with FAT32 or ReFS file system-based detachable drives won't be capable to use OneDrive storage any more.

The giant had made some the novel modification with a original update for OneDrive, and it essentially killed file syncing support for all older file systems like exFAT and FAT32 beside the new ReFS, as pointed by Neowin. With the new update, Microsoft has essentially set a bug that facilitated support for non-NTFS files. Many OneDrive users took to Reddit as well as Microsoft's own community to complain about the move.

After the new OneDrive update, many users started receiving this error message, "The location where you were trying to create OneDrive folder belongs to a drive with unsupported file system. To have OneDrive use a different location, click 'Set up OneDrive' and point OneDrive to a NTFS drive. To use the existing location with OneDrive, you need to format it with NTFS then click 'Set up OneDrive' to configure your account."

Finally, the company has now offered a clarification for the fall of support. In an emailed statement to Neowin, the company said, "Microsoft OneDrive wants to ensure users have the best possible sync experience on Windows, which is why OneDrive maintains the industry standard of support for NTFS. Microsoft discovered a warning message that should have existed was missing when a user attempted to store their OneDrive folder on a non-NTFS filesystem - which was immediately remedied."

Further, the company added that no other changes have been made to OneDrive. "Nothing has changed in terms of official support and all OneDrive folders will continue to need to be located on a drive with the NTFS filesystem," the company added.

However, the changes made by the tech giant is for a greater good but OneDrive users are argumentative about the reality that company did not send a warning before making the final changes. Users that synced their OneDrive to file systems such as exFAT, FAT32, or ReFS drive will now have to format their drives to NTFS and then, re-sysnc.