Can't uninstall One Drive

Hazel123 said:

I have set up with a local account - so presumably there is nothing to unlink?

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That is true, a local account is not associated with onedrive UNLESS you manually set up backup to onedrive on the local account which you would have had to purposely do. Before you uninstall it, open task manager, startup apps, find onedrive.exe in the list and disable it. Restart and no onedrive background processes will be running. Use Revo to uninstall oedrive, making sure to check and delete all leftover items Revo finds.

Here's a little cleanup work if you do uninstall it.
To remove the onedrive folder from file explorer navigation pane Add or Remove OneDrive in Navigation Pane of File Explorer in Windows 11
to remove onedrive from context menu Add or Remove "Move to OneDrive" context menu in Windows 11

Ok I'll go back to where I started in this thread. When clean installing Windows 11 23H2 (or 24H2) with a local account - One Drive is NOT THERE TO UNINSTALL in the list of apps. It only shows in the start menu program list - if you right click on that and select uninstall, it takes you back to the program list - and One Drive is still not there in the program list. So it sends you round in circles and there is no way to uninstall it (obviously anyway).

This is with a local account, so you can't "unlink" first, because it's not linked. If I sign in with a MS account, and unlink (and MAYBE it will then be there to uninstall), and then go back to a local account, that is just temporary, because as soon as I sign in with an MS account again, it will reinstall One Drive again.

So - how do you uninstall One Drive in 24H2 in a local account?

I resorted to chat gpt who said it is "baked in" in 23H2 and 24H2 and suggested either using group policy edit, or a registry file, and renaming the one drive .exe folder (which I haven't done, but what do you think about it?).

So to my mind, if I want to install Windows 11, I'd be better installing Windows 10 first, uninstalling One Drive, then upgrading to Windows 11 (which is what I did with my other machine).

EDIT - It was in programs in control panel this time - so I uninstalled it there. Not in the apps list. Does it only appear in the apps list if you're signed in with an MS account?

Hazel123 said:

Does it only appear in the apps list if you're signed in with an MS account?

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AFIK The onedrive app is installed no matter if the user uses a MS account or a local account, Windows 10 or Windows 11.
Onedrive app is present until it is uninstalled.

Folks think that once Onedrive is uninstalled it will stay uninstalled. I know for a fact installing OFC365 or Ofc2021 or Ofc2024 will reinstall it. Though others say I am wrong, I have always suspected an OS upgrade can also bring it back. Since I never uninstalled Onedrive, I can't say this 100%. It's why I've always felt disabling Onedrive from autostarting makes more sense than uninstalling.

@Hazel123

You may have to do this first...


Then do the RED warning and Option One, here...



I never synced OneDrive at all, and installed it immediately, and it never came back, but I also did the tutorial above.

The list of steps @glasskuter provides couldn’t be easier to follow and as she states, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 or 11.
As for the WiFi, I also find that bizarre.

glasskuter said:

AFIK The onedrive app is installed no matter if the user uses a MS account or a local account, Windows 10 or Windows 11.
Onedrive app is present until it is uninstalled.

Folks think that once Onedrive is uninstalled it will stay uninstalled. I know for a fact installing OFC365 or Ofc2021 or Ofc2024 will reinstall it. Though others say I am wrong, I have always suspected an OS upgrade can also bring it back. Since I never uninstalled Onedrive, I can't say this 100%. It's why I've always felt disabling Onedrive from autostarting makes more sense than uninstalling.

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Yes installing any Office definitely reinstalls it - had that before. But I just uninstalled it again. But that was previously - it seems a bit different on 23H2 and 24H2. Anyway it's uninstalled now and the only thing left is the one drive folder in c drive. Which is presumably where it gets installed from again if an app triggers it. Chat GPT suggested renaming that folder to stop it executing - but I'm not too sure about doing that!

Ghot said:

@Hazel123

You may have to do this first...

Enable or Disable Automatically Update Apps in Microsoft Store in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the automatic download and install of available app updates in the Microsoft Store for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft redesigned the Microsoft Store app from the ground up in Windows 11, making space for more content...

www.elevenforum.com

Then do the RED warning and Option One, here...

Uninstall and Reinstall OneDrive in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to uninstall or reinstall OneDrive for only your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. OneDrive is built-in to Windows 11 by default. With OneDrive, you can sync files and folders between your computer and the cloud, so you can get to your files from anywhere -...

www.elevenforum.com

I never synced OneDrive at all, and installed it immediately, and it never came back, but I also did the tutorial above.

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Thanks - yes that didn't work for me as it wasn't in the apps list - but it was in control panel. I'm not planning on signing in with a microsoft account on this machine so it should stay uninstalled - unless I install office. It's a spare laptop so I don't plan to.

And the wifi issue was horrible. I posted about it on 10 forums and tried all sorts with some help and just gave up in the end and put Windows 11 back on it! There was no logical reason for it so I've decided microsoft doesn't want me installing Windows 10 on a computer that can run Windows 11

glasskuter said:

It does not matter which one you install. . If you install either 10 or 11 using a MS account , documents, desktop, pictures, and videos will have a default location of onedrive rather than C:\users\username\foldername

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which is what drives one of my friends batshit crazy. He is pretty non-technical about Windows and programs.

glasskuter said:

I know for a fact installing OFC365 or Ofc2021 or Ofc2024 will reinstall it. Though others say I am wrong,

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Perhaps not wrong, but you can turn off installing onedrive in setup config. But had seen it a few times while not paying attention and it got installed again.

Over the course of the years i made an app that runs at windows statup, with a processwatcher, that has a deny list of apps i never want to run and onedrive is on the list. So even when onedrive gets installed again, it could start for a microsecond before getting killed automaticly. And then that trigger an auto uninstall script automaticly again.

Well so far I’ve found that with a clean install of either windows 10 or 11 with a local account, if you uninstall it, it is completely gone. Although there is still a one drive empty folder in c drive. However you have to find it! Sometimes it’s in control panel programs and not in the apps list. If later signing in with a Microsoft account - it might reinstall it again - then you’d need to do the unlink account and uninstall again, as per the advice above. Likewise if installing office.

Hazel123 said:

If latercsigbing in with a Microsoft account - it might reinstall it again - then you’d need to do the unlink account and uninstall again.

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Thats why i also delete the onedrivesetup.exe from system32 folder.

Hazel123 said:

Just as an update - I gave up on that - and am reinstalling Windows 11 24H2 on the spare laptop. So - @glasskuter - the first thing I should do is unlink one drive and then uninstall it right?

But - I have set up with a local account - so presumably there is nothing to unlink? Can I just uninstall it? I assume that in future, if I ever sign in with a microsoft account on this laptop, one drive may appear again - so would I then just unlink it after signing in with an ms account?

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Before you re-install Windows. I suggest that you create an Autounattend.xml from this link:
The sections are pretty well lay-out and skip a lot of questions/answers as you would get with standard installation,
setup a local user automatically etc...
One section is you select what Apps to install such as OD, Games, Xbox, Office365 etc.... hence save a lot of disk space for apps that you'd never use.
AFter you create the Autounattend.xml file, save it to the root folder of the installation media then proceed with the installation.

Tester said:

Thats why i also delete the onedrivesetup.exe from system32 folder.

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AI suggested I rename that so it didn't activate. I guess it's the same thing.