A few days ago, Microsoft updated its OneDrive sync client for Windows, and many users aren"t happy. This is because the new application only seems to support NTFS, which is the default file system on modern versions of Windows.
It"s not surprising to see an end of support for exFAT or FAT32, which have been around for decades. Some users, however, are reporting that they"re unable to set up the cloud storage service on drives that are formatted with ReFS. Introduced with Windows 8 and Server 2012, ReFS is the next-generation file system for Windows, and it"s rumored to be the default in an upcoming version of the OS.
When we tested this out, we downloaded the new sync client and attempted to set the OneDrive folder to a USB drive that was formatted with FAT32, and got the message that you can see in the image above. Unfortunately, many users are booting up their PCs, and finding that their already setup OneDrive isn"t working.
Reports of the issue started coming in last week, and it"s still unclear if Microsoft actually meant to do this. After all, it could be a simple bug causing it in the latest update, as the firm didn"t warn anyone before doing this, and it would seem that it would still want to support ReFS going forward.
The simple solution is to format the drive you"re using to NTFS (and sync everything all over again), or you can just wait until Microsoft provides an official statement, as it"s entirely possible that the next update will fix this. Naturally, we"ve reached out to the company for more information.
Source: Microsoft (1) (2), Reddit via MSPoweruser