Forum Discussion
OneNote vs. OneNote for Windows 10
I received an email this morning reminding me of the impending end of support for the OneNote for Windows 10 app. As I do periodically when I am reminded about this, I launched the OneNote on Windows (OneNote M365) app and lamented how much less user friendly it is than its doomed cousin.
The lack of a "Recent Notes" view is my biggest gripe, but the awkward "pop-over" search comes a close second. The tabs and search result are on an ugly grey background and everything is just slightly too small to read comfortably.
Am I the only one?
9 Replies
The 'nag' popups encouraging you to update are becoming really, really annoying. Anyone know how to turn them off?
Hey Bola_Soneye​, are you seeing this? People are begging for ways to turn off the notifications to switch to OneNote on Windows. Don't you think this might be a sign that discontinuing OneNote for Windows 10 is a mistake?
This is a great spot RyanSteele-CoV​
I mean lets just start at WHY there was a need to rename or reskin the fabled "OneNote for Windows10" - SURELY, when you name an application product against a Platform OS, you're dooming you're product at birth?
Alas - Win10 version is (or WAS) very SLICK and I entirely agree that the super convenient "Recent Notes" button on the left navigation was a master stroke. I pretty much live in this throughout the day across dozens of notes, securely saved & sync'd to my ODB.
NOW - for whatever reason, we're being forced to BACKTRACK to the OneNote Classic verion and LOSE functionality. WHY OH WHY Microsoft - surely the Skin for OneNote is purely just that.
Irritatingly, the MAC version (which is just OneNote) IS ACTUALLY the same skin that was the OneNote for Windows. So that functionality STILL EXISTS for Mac users - totally bonkers!
Anyway, I dont think anyone from MSFT reads these user forums, or cares, so this post is just sewn away to the relics of the other retired MSFT projects.
Thanks for highlighting this Ryan - you spotted this very early on!How to export a notebook from One Note Windows10 to the new version?
You don't need to export anything. OneNote for Windows 10 stores your notebooks in OneDrive or SharePoint, and the "new" OneNote on Windows will open them automatically.
Ryan, That was not my experience when I tried it out last week. The "new" OneNote did not recognize my "old" notebook. I'll try it again and take a closer look. I hope you're correct because it will be a real PIA to manually copy all my sections and pages from my "old" notebook.
Just a follow-up to my previous comment. In the last couple of days, Microsoft added an additional annoying 'nag' banner, more prominent than the 'nag' banner I previously mentioned.
It would appear that Microsoft prefers to further alienate their long-time customer base by 'forcing' them onto the new version, whether or not it's suitable for their situations. What a cynical exercise! Making the old version of your notebook read-only! Looks like I'll need to look for a similar product from another vendor after October. ðŸ˜
I only just received my first reminder a couple of days ago so, having some time today, I tried 'updating' to 'OneNote (for Windows)'. I was not at all impressed. Here're some of my complaints.
- There doesn't appear to be a way to export your 'OneNote for Windows 10' notebooks to OneNote
- OneNote now appears as a 'Startup App' and I couldn't find an option to make it manual start up
- A 'Create Quicknote' icon now appears in the task bar and I couldn't find an option to turn off that 'feature'
- On each start up, it insists on using an old, defunct Microsoft account and each time I need to switch to my current account
- As I have disabled the system-wide Copilot feature, it warns me every time on one of those annoying notification bars above the ribbon that some features are not available.
At this point, I decided it's not for me and uninstalled it. At least it removed the 'Start Up App' entry but it didn't remove the 'OneNote Notebooks' folder.
Hopefully 'OneNote for Windows 10' will still be usable for some time after support expires in October.
Still trying to get used to OneNote M365. I've been using the "History > Recent Edits > All pages sorted by date" option (three clicks! ugh!) in place of the missing Recent Notes view. Today, however, it's completely blank. On a hunch, I went in and had a look at the Application log in Event Viewer and sure enough, the Windows Search index got corrupted and is being rebuilt.
Recent Notes and Search in OneNote for Windows 10 is still working just fine, of course.
Microsoft, if you're listening: please reconsider retiring OneNote for Windows 10. 😥
