Solved Has OneDrive gone insane?!

TraderGary · 2026-07-22T00:46:34-0400

Scannerman said:
I would venture that "some" pretty much represents the majority of those who attempt to use it;

I absolutely agree. OneDrive never should have been made a default backup solution for the unknowledgeable. That was a recipe for disaster.

Scannerman said:
but I'm sure there must be some way to submit and comply in some fashion to let MS have their way with one's data, hardware, PC etc. that allows a user to avoid what happened in the OP.

One of the biggest mistakes Microsoft ever made was to make OneDrive default to ON with Windows 11.

Scannerman said:
My solution is simple: Don't use it. For me, if I have to jump through all those hoops and hurdles just to maintain ownership of my hardware it just isn't worth the hassle.

I agree. For you it's the right choice.

Scannerman · 2026-07-22T00:59:20-0400

I seem to recall a time when I thought I had One Drive set up precisely the way I wanted. Then came this Windows update. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Let's just say that I somewhat sympathize with the OP. Now if this were the only problem things might have been different, but from the things I've read (not just in this forum) and the issues I experienced first hand I really do not consider the app worth my while. Evidently I am hardly alone in this regard. No one can say that I didn't give it an honest effort. In fact, I'm still paying for my 365 subscription(s). But as for my main unit One Drive remains disabled.

TraderGary · 2026-07-22T01:18:47-0400

Scannerman said:
I seem to recall a time when I thought I had One Drive set up precisely the way I wanted. Then came this Windows update. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Let's just say that I somewhat sympathize with the OP. Now if this were the only problem things might have been different, but from the things I've read (not just in this forum) and the issues I experienced first hand I really do not consider the app worth my while. Evidently I am hardly alone in this regard. No one can say that I didn't give it an honest effort. In fact, I'm still paying for my 365 subscription(s). But as for my main unit One Drive remains disabled.

How well I remember trying to figure out what had happened when suddenly files and folders I considered private were suddenly in my OneDrive folder. I run two computers and suddenly my two Desktops were combined in OneDrive. WTF. It took a while to see that Microsoft had moved the contents of my Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders into my OneDrive folder without my knowledge. It took a good bit of work to fix the damage and turn OFF the Windows Backup "feature".

pseymour · 2026-07-22T03:18:53-0400

I feel bad for OP. The original topic is long buried.

Stigg · 2026-07-22T03:26:24-0400

pseymour said:
I feel bad for OP. The original topic is long buried.

I'll answer the OP's original question.

Yes. OneDrive has gone insane. Case closed.

TairikuOkami · 2026-07-22T06:17:21-0400

Stigg said:
I'll answer the OP's original question.

Yes. OneDrive has gone insane. Case closed.

Yeah, I was under impression, that disabling OneDrive will solve it temporarily, till some updates fix it, but the sync service is still running, even when OneDrive if offline and not syncing anything, it keeps writing imaginary sync errors for the imaginary OneDrive files. I wanted to disable the service, but it is not actually a service, just some random support process, which is not even needed. I removed OneDrive.Sync.Service.exe and sync is working. So, fixed, sort of. If OneDrive update reinstalls it, I will be forced to uninstall OneDrive for good, because this is some

, over the whole week, it must have written several TBs. :weary:

TraderGary · 2026-07-22T06:38:14-0400

pseymour said:
I feel bad for OP. The original topic is long buried.

@pseymour
As usual, El;evenForum has a large cadre of OneDrive haters that take over any OneDrive thread. The OP is a forum regular, so I don't think he's going anywhere. Maybe the thread can be unburied.

In over 20 years of using OneDrive, I've never seen this problem.

If OP simply deletes the huge offending OneDrive log, OneDrive will start over again with a fresh new log. That gets rid of his huge log, and the new smaller log will be easier to handle and read.

Was the suggestion of removing and re adding OneDrive followed?

TraderGary · 2026-07-22T06:43:39-0400

TairikuOkami said:
Yeah, I was under impression, that disabling OneDrive will solve it temporarily, till some updates fix it, but the sync service is still running, even when OneDrive if offline and not syncing anything, it keeps writing imaginary sync errors for the imaginary OneDrive files. I wanted to disable the service, but it is not actually a service, just some random support process, which is not even needed. I removed OneDrive.Sync.Service.exe and sync is working. So, fixed, sort of. If OneDrive update reinstalls it, I will be forced to uninstall OneDrive for good, because this is some , over the whole week, it must have written several TBs.

OneDrive is an application that runs the OneDrive service. Did you try uninstalling OneDrive, then rebooting and adding OneDrive back again?

hader · 2026-07-22T07:05:14-0400

TairikuOkami said:
Yeah, I was under impression, that disabling OneDrive will solve it temporarily, till some updates fix it, but the sync service is still running, even when OneDrive if offline and not syncing anything, it keeps writing imaginary sync errors for the imaginary OneDrive files. I wanted to disable the service, but it is not actually a service, just some random support process, which is not even needed. I removed OneDrive.Sync.Service.exe and sync is working. So, fixed, sort of. If OneDrive update reinstalls it, I will be forced to uninstall OneDrive for good, because this is some , over the whole week, it must have written several TBs.

Does it solved that 412Gb generation issue? That was the main problem. Because it was under the OneDrive folder, Windows was mainly busy with synching it to the cloud. It only syncs a file it is changed, but if new lines are added each second; it then keep syncing all the time. One way to solve this is to alter it's location at the generator source. *Can't understand why it's placed under that OneDrive map in the first place. Windows never places .evtx and .etl files under that OneDrive location. There is also no need for backing this up either. All it contains is data that is valid today, but maybe obsolete tomorrow. That OneDrive location is only intended to store personal data. Not systemfiles! If it's placed back after a crash it's content is useless.* Don't know what program or service etc. is responsible for that. A look for a path in the registry of it's current location and changing it may move that file out of the OneDrive "seeing" it and hereby not syncing it with the cloud. This doesn't prevent the generation of that .etl file. It can only be solved at it's source by resolve that error or put a cap on it's size. Currently if it does not stop generating such enormous large files it's eating resources; slowing your PC down. Removing OneDrive all together will not solve this issue.....

I saw a screendump the location; Logs. What is the name of that .etl file?

Scannerman · 2026-07-22T11:02:23-0400

hader said:
Removing OneDrive all together will not solve this issue.....

And if that should be the case then one wonders if One Drive is worth the trouble to begin with. In my case it solved the issue but then there was some preliminary work to do first.

pseymour said:
I feel bad for OP. The original topic is long buried.

Don't feel bad, pseymour. We can still pull the baby out of the bath water. We have done nothing immoral here. We had some fun, a little kibitzing, a little banter, it's all par for the course.

TraderGary said:
As usual, El;evenForum has a large cadre of OneDrive haters that take over any OneDrive thread.

One need not marvel. If it works well for some people so be it. Let them use it. Others with knowledge, expertise, and experience have found this app to be a troublesome waste of time and energy. The numbers speak for themselves and the OP is only one example why One Drive isn't exactly one's best choice. To be fair, those who have drawn upon their own knowledge and experience to offer their sage advice ought to be commended instead of ridiculed. There are many here with knowledge and experience that still have little to no use for that app. They are not necessarily people who regurgitate rote answers and recycled disinformation. That said there are tutorial links in this forum that can help people with this app.

TairikuOkami said:
If OneDrive update reinstalls it, I will be forced to uninstall OneDrive for good, because this is some , over the whole week, it must have written several TBs.

Unless you have carefully followed the instructions in the tutorial this is very likely to happen again. Sorry. I feel your pain. There is a way to fix it. Myself, I recommend keeping it off your main. You can still use OneDrive with other PCs if you wish. If you use OFFICE 365 or whatever they're calling it these days you can still access your files and upload files to OneDrive without compromising your network. I do NOT recommend it for backing up your PC.

IF you have several PCs to play with (like yours truly) you could try experimenting with OneDrive on one of them until you find what works for you.
I hope this helps.

TraderGary · 2026-07-22T11:17:58-0400

Scannerman said:
And if that should be the case then one wonders if One Drive is worth the trouble to begin with. In my case it solved the issue but then there was some preliminary work to do first.

Don't feel bad, pseymour. We can still pull the baby out of the bath water. We have done nothing immoral here. We had some fun, a little kibitzing, a little banter, it's all par for the course.

One need not marvel. If it works well for some people so be it. Let them use it. Others with knowledge, expertise, and experience have found this app to be a troublesome waste of time and energy. The numbers speak for themselves and the OP is only one example why One Drive isn't exactly one's best choice. To be fair, those who have drawn upon their own knowledge and experience to offer their sage advice ought to be commended instead of ridiculed. There are many here with knowledge and experience that still have little to no use for that app. They are not necessarily people who regurgitate rote answers and recycled disinformation. That said there are tutorial links in this forum that can help people with this app.

Unless you have carefully followed the instructions in the tutorial this is very likely to happen again. Sorry. I feel your pain. There is a way to fix it. Myself, I recommend keeping it off your main. You can still use OneDrive with other PCs if you wish. If you use OFFICE 365 or whatever they're calling it these days you can still access your files and upload files to OneDrive without compromising your network. I do NOT recommend it for backing up your PC.

IF you have several PCs to play with (like yours truly) you could try experimenting with OneDrive on one of them until you find what works for you.
I hope this helps.

That's exactly where Microsoft made their mistake. They called OneDrive a backup. OneDrive is NOT a backup. OneDrive only does one thing and it does it well. It keeps files in the OneDrive folder in real-time sync among all devices that are logged in. Nothing more, nothing less.

Scannerman · 2026-07-22T11:30:52-0400

"Back up your PC now.. " lol :lmao:

pparks1 · 2026-07-22T11:31:42-0400

OneDrive I think was a response to another popular operating system with an Apple on the device which defaults to saving documents and such to their online cloud service, iCloud. Another great tool from that other operation system is Time Machine, which indeed is a backup and makes it trivially easy to get a new Mac and like magic, your files and such are all available when you get signed into the device for the first time.

We have to remember that a ton of people aren't super computer savvy. Many do not back up their files and if their machine is lost, stolen or fails....they often lose their files. But by incorporating something like OneDrive, their files are both on their device and stored as well in the cloud behind their Microsoft login ID. Imagine how happy somebody is who "thinks" they lost everything, to find out that when they sign back onto their new computer, that like magic, all of their stuff just magically re-appears.

I don't necessary feel that OneDrive shouldn't have been turned on my default....but I certainly would have welcomed Microsoft making it a bit easier to disable it when you don't want it. For those who aren't savvy, they need it done without having to follow instructions. For those of us who are savvy, we are well capable of researching and following instructions to work around something.

I've had no problems at all, saving files in non OneDrive locations from any apps that I have used. Microsoft is in no way forcing me to use OneDrive. That's why I always seem a bit surprised when I hear such hated and vitriol against the product. It's so easy to not use it. But it's there if you want to use it.

Solved Has OneDrive gone insane?!

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