Forum Discussion
Onenote failing to open .one files created on a Surface Hub
That's how it is. OneNote 2010/2013/2016 Windows desktop Version (aka OneNote W32) is the only client that can open .ONE or .ONEPKG files. All other clients expect notebooks on OneDrive or OneDrive fro Business where they are represented by a link file / placeholder which points to a hidden notebook structure of folders and .ONE files.
Which is a real joy when migrating.
Got a company division subsite that needs to move to a different departmental site-collection? Hope your documentation isn't in OneNote, because it's now a folder chock-full of .one files and directories corresponding to sections.
I'll ask: why? Why the disconnect between the client software, and the different handling of the content on the back-end? This makes things (such as migrating massive OneNote notebooks into Team-based notebooks an absolute nightmare.
OneNote used to be my favorite MSFT product. Then things got complicated.
I guess these aren't technical but political decisions. Yes, OneNote has been invented in 2000 by Chris Pratley as a productivity tool. Then at some point Microsoft declared it part of Office (which in my opinion it never really was, no matter that it has been installed together with Word and Excel and despite half baked connections to Outlook).
In 2014 Satya Nadella introduced his "cloud first mobile first" strategy. Immediately OneNote was declared "cloud software". So things like local storing or even backup are not wanted. OneNote is only to make people use OneDrive and OneDrive for business. That's why almost all versions are free. Well, all versions. Because no one would not buy / subscribe to Office 365 if there wasn't OneNote in it. (wait a few weeks, OneNote is starting to get a new face. It's educational software now)
So I guess if we want to continue using OneNote we have to live with the cloud only restriction. Maybe we'll get an easier way to move notebooks between accounts or tenants.
