Solved Google is like a wart

@izzyforeal I'm right there with you. It's not a big deal to have it in the context menu but it irks me to no end that as a user I have no control over it. I hoped Brink could work some of his magic and keep it from happening. However, he responded back with this "If I remember correctly, Google Drive like OneDrive will automatically restore these whenever you open it. It's like a built-in check and repair feature."

So, other than disabling google drive in services or uninstalling google drive completely, we'll just have to live with it.

Google are a wart and a bug too. Have him in reg edit and can not delete him. Protected by Windows.
\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\NativeMessagingHosts\com.microsoft.browsercore
And I never use Google, so this has to follow Win 11
zyco1955

izzyforeal said:

Thanks Glasskuter....I told you it's like warts! I hate stuff being put on my system I never authorized and then to be unable to remove it makes me furious. You can't control MY computer!

Click to expand...

I have the solution!

First, you have to find 3 keys.

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.gdoc\ShellNew]

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.gsheet\ShellNew]

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.gslides\ShellNew]

Second, you have to remove all 3 entries one at a time.

Third, you must be quick now! Right-click on the key (ShellNew), hit Permissions and a new window will open. Select Administrators (lowest entry in Group or user names), Deny Full Control and hit Apply.

I don't know why this Google Drive software is so aggressive, I just find the fact very disturbing and the company is not honest at all if you ask them for their reasons...but this eliminates all the Google "New" items for good.

I did that (long ago, mid 2022) but it was a disaster and I did revert the change.
Reason: Google tried to change this every few seconds but as it could not do that, the desktop was always refreshed. As a result, actions I was working on (e.g. changing file names) were interrupted. Moreover, it was very disturbing, those flashes on the screen all the time.

I don't know if that was changed nowadays in new versions of google, but I don't think it will.
And it is just a bit too complicated to do it renewed just for a test.
In the meantime I got used to those three entries in the 'new' menu and learned to just ignore them.
There are worse problems in the world...

Kees said:

I did that (long ago, mid 2022) but it was a disaster and I did revert the change.
Reason: Google tried to change this every few seconds but as it could not do that, the desktop was always refreshed. As a result, actions I was working on (e.g. changing file names) were interrupted. Moreover, it was very disturbing, those flashes on the screen all the time.

I don't know if that was changed nowadays in new versions of google, but I don't think it will.
And it is just a bit too complicated to do it renewed just for a test.
In the meantime I got used to those three entries in the 'new' menu and learned to just ignore them.
There are worse problems in the world...

Click to expand...

Kees, it has worked perfectly for me for 2 months. No flickering, no reloading, no bs. It has even worked after Google and Microsoft updates. I will say in step 3 you have to be quick.

izzyforeal said:

I will say in step 3 you have to be quick.

Click to expand...

Yes, I was quick and did change those permissions.
I followed the instruction from here:
That text, written by Texxi on ‎Jul 10 2022 08:04 AM, is exectly the same as yours...

But Sep 15 2022 04:29 PM jtbrown3 wrote:

Nice solution, but BEWARE of the potential side effects! On my W11 machine, changing/revoking these registry permissions caused my desktop and explorer windows to annoyingly 'refresh' every couple of minutes as GoogleDriveFS.exe attempted to unsuccessfully rewrite the deleted values. Restoring the permissions reversed the refresh issue. Personally, I'd prefer NOT to have blinking desktop icons every few minutes! It took me forever to finally figure out what was causing the annoying desktop refresh! Don't be fooled. -JT

Click to expand...

That exactly describes what I experienced, so I decided not to use the trick anymore.

Maybe sometime I will try again if the behaviour of the installed Google Drive app has changed.
It is updated automatically and regularly, so who knows.

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I think it's worth considering, for getting rid of the warts. I would completely uninstall Google Drive (using Revo or similar and removing all leftovers), and then I'd log into Google Drive and use my browser's context menu to create a desktop shortcut to Google Drive and put that shortcut wherever you want it.

The warts are gone and won't come back, and you have instant access to Google Drive for uploads and downloads. What you don't have is a syncing program, but I don't find those things manageable at all. When I've acquired something during the day that I want stored in the cloud, I just click the G Drive shortcut and upload that something.

No software added to my PC; no entries added to my context menus; none of the unwanted additional Google apps that come with installing G Drive. Really easy ups and downs, and additional storage space is reasonably priced.

No, that's not a usable situation for me, as I can't copy files from/to the google drive environment in my Firefox browser, which is the browser that is opened when I click the shortcut to Google Drive on my desktop. For that I need to install Google Chrome and that's something I don't want to do.

Besides that: my synchronizing program (SyncBack) every day does an automatic backup of all the folders I specified in that program to a scratch partition (completely separate from other data partitions) and that location is coupled / synchronized to the Google Drive. It does that copy only of the files that were added or changed after a certain date. That's the date I made the last backup on an external drive to be kept by my son, who lives in a town nearby (and who I trust fully). A few times a year I make a new backup (on a different drive), give it to my son and change the date, delete all files on the google drive, after that it starts all over again. So I can easily use the maximum of 15 GByte that Google Drive allows me.

BTW. All files that are confidential information are pdf's /xlsx /docx with password on them, so no worry anybody can see my files. Of course that password would be crackable, but I don't suppose there is anybody wanting to spend hours of processor time just to see printouts of my bank accounts (and other information like that)...

Edit: 2024-02-15 21:07: changed maximum of 5 GByte into 15 GByte (that's what the free space @ Google Drive is)

Kees said:

Yes, I was quick and did change those permissions.
I followed the instruction from here:

Remove Google Sheets, Docs, Slides entries from "New" context menu | Microsoft Community Hub

Since I use Microsoft Office 365 on my Windows 10, 11 PCs, I never use the Google tools Docs, Sheets, Slides. Unfortunately I just need Google Drive and...

techcommunity.microsoft.com

That text, written by Texxi on ‎Jul 10 2022 08:04 AM, is exectly the same as yours...

But Sep 15 2022 04:29 PM jtbrown3 wrote:

That exactly describes what I experienced, so I decided not to use the trick anymore.

Maybe sometime I will try again if the behaviour of the installed Google Drive app has changed.
It is updated automatically and regularly, so who knows.

Click to expand...

Well I must be lucky but I doubt it.

Today as first thing I did the test:
- Downloaded the newest version of Google Drive App for Windows.
- Transfered it to my test system on VirtualBox.
- Installed that on that system.
- Logged in
- Restarted the system
- Checked if the new entries in context menu were there: indeed, they were.
- Did the upper routine to delete the entries, including the permissions of the 3 Shellnew folders.
- The entries were indeed gone.
After that, the flashing of the desktop icons started. Every (exactly) 60 seconds all icons on the dekstop are refreshed. That's because Google Drive tries to redo the deletion of the three entries in the context menu, but fails. Nothing has changed since 2022!
I did another restart, but that was not bringing a solution either...

I don't like that and so I will still accept those three extra items in the New context menu.
It's one way or the other...

Because I did the test in my testenvironment, I did not need to put the permissions back, just shutting down the snapshot was sufficient.
I will keep that snapshot for a while just in case someone here still has another solution, after that I'll delete it.