Microsoft Releases Free Edition of OneNote 208
yakatz writes "Microsoft announced that OneNote, including the full desktop program, will be free for anyone who wants to use the program. A version of the program for Mac also appeared in the app store yesterday. This means that a native edition of OneNote is available for most platforms (including iPad, iPhone and Android, but not Linux or Blackberry). Microsoft will continue to offer a paid version of OneNote with 'business-oriented' features (including SharePoint support, version history and Outlook integration). The partial rebranding of OneNote also includes some new tools like a program specifically designed to make it easier to take a picture of a whiteboard.
Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?" (Over at WineHQ, they're looking for a maintainer for their page on OneNote. Anyone running it on a Free operating system? What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?)
Is this a signal that Microsoft decided that they need to compete with Apple by making their productivity applications free?" (Over at WineHQ, they're looking for a maintainer for their page on OneNote. Anyone running it on a Free operating system? What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?)
Next they'll give internet explorer free (Score:2, Insightful)
Jeez, basic tools to use a computer coming with the operating system? Do they have any other genius ideas?
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Perhaps you're not old enough to remember it but back when MS was evil they caught all kinds of hell for giving away free things with their OS.
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You're ignoring one critical detail. In the mobile world, you have a choice. Don't like what Apple does? Buy a Samsung. Or a Blackberry. Or one of those Ubuntu phones. Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on the market. Android is now what, 3-1 for every Apple device?
Microsoft on the other hand, utterly dominates the PC landscape, and continues to this day. That means if you don't like what Microsoft is doing, tough noogies because it's very unlikely that you can switch to something else. So they've
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Re:Next they'll give internet explorer free (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple, in constrast, makes sure any competitive app never sees the light of day:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1384... [cnet.com]
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2008.... what like the 1st year the app store was even out, Iphone barely a year old....have something a bit more recent?
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And the citation showing proof of this retcon is...
I certainly don't recall anyone from the EU saying at the time that they were just using Internet Explorer as an excuse for punishing Microsoft for other crimes.
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WTF is OneNote? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they're making it free, to get some recognition?
Re:WTF is OneNote? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a tabbed version of WordPad that allows you to paste in images, spreadsheet snippets, text etc, but has Deep Hooks in to Sharepoint to create things like programmable checklists for manual tasks that email out the results. It's been around since at least 2007. In the right hands it's very powerful but most people ignore it.
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It's a little more sophisticated than that given the integrated handwriting recognition. OneNote is a spiritual copy of the original standalone Evernote.
Re:WTF is OneNote? (Score:4, Informative)
OneNote is a spiritual copy of the original standalone Evernote.
That's quite a feat, considering OneNote predates Evernote by five years.
Re:WTF is OneNote? (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty nifty when I just want to sketch something out that I will transpose into Visio later.
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I'm sure that you can keep a porn diary in OneNote. Approach your habit as you would an academic discipline, and take notes on videos. Annotate your dickpics. Keep a running bibliography of interesting urls.
And upload the whole bit to microsoft servers so that you can enjoy a seamless experience on phone, tablet, tv, and laptop.
Re:WTF is OneNote? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if THAT doesn't make you go running for the hills from this product, nothing will.
Ugh..what a clusterfuck sharepoint is. If OneNote is a part of that environment, no wonder MS is having to try to give it away for free.
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Deep Hooks in to Sharepoint
Which isn't free, and the entire point of this.
Re:WTF is OneNote? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm....I've never heard of "OneNote" before, is anyone else very familiar with this software and its uses?
Maybe they're making it free, to get some recognition?
It has been around for over a decade now, and has been part of Microsoft Office since 2007. Microsoft Office is an (apparently) obscure suite of productivity software for Windows and Mac. Microsoft Windows is an graphic user interface operating system that has been around in various forms since the mid 80s.
The 80s was the decade when style took a holiday.
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oh now i remember, it cam bundled with my Accounting Express...
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It's a really nifty app in Windows Phone 8, but a pretty horrible app under Windows. I'm comparing OneNote 2007 and the version that came on my phone.
I just opened OneNote 2007 on my laptop, and couldn't make out head or tail of what the application does - it's just tab city, loaded w/ instructions. The one on my phone may be a later version, but does it better. It comes w/ examples of a shopping list, travel plans, and a couple of more examples. So I just had to edit that shopping list, and whenever
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The 2010 OneNote is also pretty horrible (and since I have Office 2010 installed I'm mostly using it on the phone, and quite rarely the metro app, which works pretty well, but well.. I'm not a fan of the metro apps) The 2013 one, based on screenshots, looks more usable.
Since the items get synced there are some advantages when creating items on computer. Faster typing for one.
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Unlike most companies, MS gets sued by the EU every time they try to add an app to their OS.
Unlike "most companies"? Just how many companies are in the business of creating operating systems with no hardware attached to it and selling it to HW vendors in large masses for mainstream users?
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"I fail to see how writing notes is a basic application of paper"
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The submission looks like a Microsoft advertise (Score:5, Informative)
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I must have been using it wrong. When I tried it I found it to be a big disorganized mess.
took me a while to get used to it (Score:5, Interesting)
I liked what I saw co-workers able to do with it and saw potential once I got it figured out so I kept at it. It took me a few weeks to get used to it but once I did, I loved it.
I was part of dozens (20-40) of projects at a time and it was great for keeping all of my notes about each project organized as I went from meeting to meeting. After I left that job (too many meetings) I didn't have a paid version of office. I've been more than happy with substitutes for everything else but have missed OneNote.
Re:The submission looks like a Microsoft advertise (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether OneNote is wonderfully organized or a big disorganized mess is not a property of OneNote. :)
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So exactly what are "people like writers, etc." ?
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Haha (Score:2)
Real writers use tablets...clay tablets.
In all seriousness, I never found a suitable program to store all my lab notes that I couldn't do better than just text files.
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Gnote doesn't appear to handle images and other binary data, just text.
CherryTree looks pretty close however. The only feature I see lacking is its search.
OneNote can text-search within images for example, not just the textual notes.
The Outlook integration is pretty nice too, but since that won't be in the free version it looks like, that isn't fair to compare.
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Check out KDE's BasKet [kde.org].
Re:The submission looks like a Microsoft advertise (Score:5, Informative)
It's easily one of the most flexible and IMO best products MS has ever produced. The problem is with the amount the charged for it it becomes almost worthless and it received almost no traction because MS didn't give a rats ass about it. Think evernote without the ever portion but far more flexible and with an office type interface. It's been around for more than a decade, had MS been innovative they would have been evernote, except probably far larger more widespread and in nearly every single enterprise. Instead the product was a redheaded stepchild inside MS.
But it's always been handicapped by MS's policies of not supporting non-windows and all the typical lockout and other games they've played their entire existence. It's because of this, onenote outside small niche's has seen very little uptake and almost no one knows about it.
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Absolutely!! - Mod one this up; the most insightful comment until here, AFAICS!
Trouble is, being a 100% FOSS-person, there is no close replacement, sorry. Tomboy is comparatively tomfoolery.
Parent is also right about the prohibitive price. OneNote is the only software that I'd say is unavailable on *nix, that I'd really like to have.
My partner is an academician and for her, this software is a must.
Haha, the article says it will be available on *droid, so I'd have it!? Or the usual test or evaluation version
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At least Microsoft gave a damn about Visio. OneNote was completely neglected. It could have been way more successful than evernote and all the clones had MS embraced it and went multiplatform cloud storage.
It was so carefully mismanaged that you never even knew if it would come with the version of office you were looking at because they frequently didn't even include it in the list of products even when it was included!
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Where's the data stored? (Score:2)
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Its stored on OneDrive.
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Re:Where's the data stored? (Score:5, Informative)
No, if you try creating a local notebook with the free version, you're greeted with a friendly message that says that you can only create the notebook in onedrive.
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It can be stored on OneDrive and doing so allows you to access your information from almost anyhwere using almost any device.
That also allows Microsoft to access my data.
Since others have said the free version requires the use of storage on Microsoft's computers, I suspect Microsoft will be scanning the OneNote data for monetizing purposes. Why else would they prevent the free OneNote users from storing data on non-Microsoft servers?
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Since others have said the free version requires the use of storage on Microsoft's computers, I suspect Microsoft will be scanning the OneNote data for monetizing purposes. Why else would they prevent the free OneNote users from storing data on non-Microsoft servers?
lol, you haven't looked at the free version, right? They're preventing you from storing data locally, because you have to pay money and subscribe to their online office offering to get local notebooks.
Now, they might still be scanning your notebooks, but the main reason is money.
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Re: Where's the data stored? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Where's the data stored? (Score:5, Informative)
No, the free version is cloud-only.
Go on, try creating a local notebook -- you can't do it with the free version.
I uninstalled it after I discovered that.
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It's easy enough to get a free 107GB of storage.
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Well, in all fairness, you can create a local notebook if you pay ($$$) for an office subscription. However, for what I use, I think it's way too expensive.
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This may actually be a good thing...and I can't believe I'm actually saying that about a Cloud Computing (tm) product...but roll with me for a minute; I think this may be a worthwhile system for them to be using...
1.) Onenote's first release was back in 2003. After over ten years of existence, plenty of people still don't know what it is. Onenote was originally intended to be the killer app for tablets (back when they all had pens and keyboards and were running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition...). Why not do w
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On windows, local notebooks are a subscription-only feature ($$$). I imagine it's the same on the mac. :-(
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I know with OneNote 2013 for Windows, it stores the "master" copy of your data wherever you configure it to go. It could be on a local drive, a network share, or the cloud (if you default it to SkyDrive or DropBox or Google Drive or whatever).
Then, it always keeps a cached copy on your C: drive in a big cache file for improved performance. (For Windows users, it's found under C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\15.0)
AppData is a hidden directory, BTW.
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On Windows, OneNote data is stored where you specify. You can save directly to your skydrive, to your library on your hard drive, to an individual folder on your harddrive, or to an enterprise network location.
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Comparison to EverNote (Score:2)
I've had no direct experience with OneNote before, but I have used Evernote off and on - in case anyone was wondering which one was more useful, there's a good (though year old) comparison here [pcworld.com].
To summarize, since I've been using Evernote already I'll probably stick with that. Sure OneNote is free but even taking the time to really try it out means something.
If anyone else has practical experience with why you would use OneNote over Evernote, I'd love to hear it...
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The Windows version of OneNote is the most powerful note taking program ever produced. It was also one of the first programs of its type, and offers excellent integration with other Office applications.
If you are using a Windows computer with stylus input and the MS Office suite, using OneNote is a no brainer. The handwriting recognition is pretty good. The Math equation recognition needs some work but is passable if you are a very neat writer.
If Evernote is already fulfilling your needs and you are not
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If anyone else has practical experience with why you would use OneNote over Evernote, I'd love to hear it...
I have actually used it, although only on my corporate computer that has the required Microsoft office suite anyway. It really is pretty handy, my use is limited because of the way it stores data (all one big data blob). Evernote stores everything the same way, though, so that's not different. Now that OneNote is free for lots of platforms I'll probably start using it a lot more.
I tried Evernote a while back when looking for a note-taking app for my tablet, and didn't like it. I don't know if things hav
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Thanks, between your and other comments I think I will take a look at OneNote and see if perhaps I'd prefer it for some note taking tasks. It seems like it's a different enough model it's worth trying anyway.
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It's damn good for taking notes with a stylus. It's fair for taking notes with a laptop
We use it at work instead of a whiteboard (or PowerPoint) for meetings, most of the time. It comes close to being good enough for that, but doesn't quite make it - the lack of table formatting options really hold it back (or some other way to do "boxes and arrows" more easily). For something other than engineering design meetings, it's probably fine.
One of the best new software programs (Score:2, Interesting)
OneNote is one of the most innovative software programs of the last decade and one that I have found particularly useful, as I have been using Windows tablets since 2005. While there have been imitators, none have been able to match it feature-for-feature.
I am unsure of the business logic behind the decision, but this is a big win for consumers, especially since Microsoft is now offering it on third party OS's, although in a much-reduced form.
Microsoft has had some really good ideas since Gates left, like
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Gee, thanks, Mr. Nadella.
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> Microsoft has had some really good ideas since
> Gates left, like OneNote and the Tablet PC.
Gates predicted in 2001 that "the tablet PC will be the most popular form of PC sold in America" [cnn.com] and Microsoft introduced their OS for tablets the same year. [wikipedia.org] Tablets were released by Compaq and others at the time. Gates had stepped down as CEO a year earlier but he was still around (serving on the board and giving keynotes and whatnot -- still very much the public face of MS) and it's not like MS made the tabl
Comparison (Score:2)
What are your favorite alternatives that are "libre" free, rather than only gratis?
This seems pretty thorough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Org Mode (Score:3)
Ulterior motive (Score:2, Flamebait)
Free is too Expensive (Score:2)
Free is too expensive since I don't trust Microsoft to continue to offer the product. One of the big problems is we need to continue having access to our legacy data. When Apple, Google, Microsoft or other companies decide a project is no longer worth supporting we lose access to our data going forward. They are not good about providing legacy support or data conversion.
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OneNote data is easy to extract and several tools allow it. Also not free, but Evernote will happily gobble it all up. Your data is on your own box (even if you use the online version, as it will get synced up with OneDrive), and it does have publicly available APIs.
The moment they try to close it down, move your data elsewhere. Problem solved.
Ann it still sucks. (Score:2)
The best version of One Note was back in 2003 that on a tablet edition computer you could do handwriting. Why MS decided to be morons and NOT include the handwriting notepad on the ipad version I'll never understand.
OneNote and OneDrive (Score:2)
I know you can use a public Microsoft account to log in to 8.1 and use OneDrive. But seriously, who would do that? Need to cancel my Sky..err..OneDrive
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a) Since when does OneDrive not work with Windows 8.1? It is embedded into the operating system (although it does stupidly require you to log on to the computer with your Live/OneDrive/SkyDrive/Hotmail log-in if you want to use the integrated client, which I refuse to do... but you can always use the web-interface through your browser of choice)
b) regardless of how you access OneDrive, you can install OneNote on Windows 8.1. It will request your log-in credentials during installation. Even if you log onto
Wish there was an Offline Installation (Score:2)
You can download the "desktop" client from Microsoft's website [onenote.com] but all you get is a 2MB loader that then downloads the remaining 1GB of the program. This makes me wonder two things:
1) Why doesn't Microsoft make an offline installation available for people, since the whole point of the program is to have a note-taking program that can be synced across multiple computers and devices. It would be nice not having to download 1GB on every computer I own (not to mention it would probably do wonders for their own
Re:Is this a signal? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, I know that guy. He's the same guy that was always into that band before they got all commercial and people like you came along. And he was biking to work *before* it was cool.
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I'm an evernote user (because originally the android app for OneNote sucked ass...though I just peeked at it and it looks somewhat better now), but used to use OneNote...
and while a lot of the Microsoft flame is often justified, not in this case. Get out of your bubble. OneNote is the one thing Microsoft got right, and its used by a _LOT_ of people. Even working for unix based companies, people with windows lap-top use it all the time, and those who couldn't run it before were drooling over it. Its fairly w
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OneNote is made to have multiple clients share 1 file. So any file sharing tool will work if it maps to a folder. You can stick it on a network share or something. And any "cloud drive" solution will work just fine.
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And any "cloud drive" solution will work just fine.
But it doesn't. That's my entire point. It only syncs with Sharepoint, or Microsoft's Cloud.
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Yeah after I posted that I noticed the free version was crippled, unfortunately. The pay for version's actually pretty cheap and most people get it for free via deals they can get through their employer or school, but if that's a no go, then you indeed need to look elsewhere.
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That still doesn't address the issue I am bringing up. Suppose you have a web site: www.mycompany.com, which supports various standard internet protocols for storing files: FTP, SFTP, SCP, HTTP, rsync, ... Yet OneNote can't sync its files onto there. IMHO, that's dumb. The same goes for many many competing products.
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OneNote saves to a file and expects that file to simply just get synced up on modification. Rsync will work just fine. As will any kind of folder synchronization option. FTP won't work on its own, but anything that watches a file system folder and sync it to FTP will.
Yeah, it can use SharePoint out of the box to do something similar with WebDav....and it sucks. But anything that lets you share a folder will...and there's a lot of "standard protocols" that will do that nicely.
Maybe its not THE option you wan
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Notice that most of these note-taking and file-synchronization apps all come with their own proprietary built-in solution for storing the data on a server they control. And notice that none of them have an option to enter a SFTP URL to keep the files. This tells you that they aren't in the business of providing a note taking software. They are in the business of data mining your notes.
Most, true. OneNote, however, allows you to store on a local drive, a network share, or your own web site (although I believe the web site option only works with Sharepoint - but then Microsoft tries to sell Sharepoint with EVERYTHING.
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Most, true. OneNote, however, allows you to store on a local drive, a network share, or your own web site (although I believe the web site option only works with Sharepoint - but then Microsoft tries to sell Sharepoint with EVERYTHING.
Local Drive: Yes
Network share: Only the Windows version, and only using Microsoft's network sharing protocols.
Your own web site: As you say, no, only Sharepoint.
My point is, it should be able to sync through standard internet protocols. Like HTTP, FTP, SFTP, SCP, ...
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SFTP, lol. Yeah - that's totally popular outside the neckbeard population.
Umm... it's the internet standard protocol for exchanging files. Pretty much every server on the internet supports it. Along with FTP and SCP and stuff like that. If you have a web site, or a NAS, you can sync files using it. If a company makes a tool for sharing files, it should support internet standard protocols before they invent their own. The only reason to invent your own protocol to do something already ubiquitous is for lock-in.
If I wanted to store it in the cloud I would use something like Boxcryptor to encrypt it to a cloud drive.
What you describe is manually storing a file locally and coming up
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If you want to sync elsewhere you'll have to use mode modern protocols than sftp.
That's my point. Why can't they just sync files using existing standard protocols? I'm tired of buying XYZNote and it only syncs with XYZNote's servers. Businesses want to be able to use their servers. And people are more and more paranoid of government spying. They should offer to sync with anything that lets them upload/download.
This same problem happens with image sharing tools. You import your picture to iPhoto: Great! It syncs with Facebook, Flickr, and some others. But maybe not your favorite
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The thing is, even a simpleton like you can set up a sftp storage server in 30 seconds (apt-get -y install openssh-server; echo "all done, go have dinner").
Now try to set up a web server that accepts 'https post' from your application and knows what to do with it in less than 3 hours (That's how your favourite WhatEverNotePad does it).
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[microsoft account] is required...
It's also required for every other comparable note app, too. Evernote pricing may have changed, but when I first tried it most of the features I wanted required the "premium" edition - which requires $5 every month as long as you want access to your data. That's for 1GB of storage. That microsoft account will give you 7GB for free.
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The problem isn't needing a microsoft account (i.e live account to sync settings), the problem is that the program won't install if you are using a non-microsoft account in windows 8, which practically means you can't use this on business machines.
Re:microsoft account (Score:4, Informative)
The problem isn't needing a microsoft account (i.e live account to sync settings), the problem is that the program won't install if you are using a non-microsoft account in windows 8, which practically means you can't use this on business machines.
Yes it will - I've done so (on Windows 8.1, anyway). You don't need a Microsoft account to use it at all, only if you want a "cloud-stored" notebook. You can store notebooks on local storage or network shares, too.
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Microsoft account comes with NSA backdoor to your data
That's not a Microsoft account problem, though, that's a "you put some data on the Internet" problem.
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is required...
Not according to this Ars comparison of OneNote on Windows and Mac [arstechnica.com], where they said that unlike the Windows version, the OS X version requires a Microsoft account. So it seems the Windows version can use local *.ONE files.
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A Microsoft account is also free, but they're giving away the normal client software, not just some cloud offering, right?
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