OneDrive

[Barrie Greed]

I need help wresting back control of my wife’s laptop from the clutches of OneDrive.

Her Lenovo laptop is somehow running Windows 11 and has Office 365 installed. Somewhere along the way OneDrive seems to have taken control of the laptop to the extent that if I try to create a file on the laptop OneDrive copies it to the cloud and then treats the cloud copy as the prime copy.

My plan is to make sure everything currently on OneDrive is copied to the laptop, delete everything on OneDrive and then kill OneDrive. My problem is I have no idea how to kill OneDrive.

Can anyone enlighten me?


Barrie Greed

[terrie]

Barrie...

I can't offer specific help because I've never used (and will never use) One Drive and, I'm running Win7/Pro BUT!!!


I wanted to let you know that you aren't alone with this issue. I've read about this very thing in other forums. I'm going to try and see if I can find the thread I'm remembering and if so, I'll report back...




Terrie

[Barrie Greed]

Terrie


Thanks. I steer clear of OneDrive myself which is why I have no clue how to get it to leave files alone.


Barrie Greed

[Bo Aakerstrom]

Here's Microsoft's instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-6efb09f944b0

I have mine permanently paused, so I can access any synced files whenever I want to.

[Steve Rindsberg]

That confirms my suspicion: that you could just uninstall the thing (Control Panel, Programs & Features). At least in Win10. The link doesn't address Win11 ... over to you for confirmation on that, Barrie.

But to reiterate what link points out, you can still upload/download files to/from OneDrive if you wish. After removing the OD app, you use your browser instead.

This is more or less what I've been doing for a couple years; the OD app is either removed or disabled, but putting stuff up on OD via brower's kind of convenient at times. Passing files to colleagues/clients whose locked-down email won't let them receive attachments, sharing photos with friends/family, moving files from my computers to the iPhone/iPad, stuff like that.

Note: If you want to send links to people in order to share files on OD, don't use its own feature to do the email. That works if and ONLY if their OD login email address is the same as their regular email address; a great setup if you want to make it easier for hackers. Instead, let OD create a link that you can email using your own email program. This will work regardless of the recipient's email address.

Same thing is true of Dropbox and probably most of the other sharing gadgets.

[woody649]

I don't know if Office 365 is different from Office 2019, but in 2019 you can also go into the settings (File > Options) for each program and set the default file location. I think when I installed Office 2019 it defaulted to wanting to save files to C:/Users/MyName or something like that. I'm set up with a Western Digital MyCloud external device running as Network Addressable Storage that I have configured as drive Y:/ on all my computers, so on each computer I had to tell all the Office programs to use that as the default save location.

The only apps I can't do that with are the on-line versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. And they are so crippled compared to the desktop versions that I never use them -- I just maintain access to them for emergencies.

[Edit to add] I have a free OneDrive account, which anyone who has a free Microsoft account can have. It shows up in File Explorer as a network drive, but I have never had it try to take over and assert itself as the primary storage location for anything other than the aforementioned Office On-line apps. I rarely use it. So rarely, in fact, that it often turns itself off and I then have to re-enter my user name and password to regain access to it.

[terrie]

Ok...I've found some info. I don't know how useful it might be.


There is apparently a configuration option for OneDrive--perhaps in Control Panel? One of the suboptions available is "Files On-Demand" and this should be UNchecked if one wants files store both locally and via OneDrive storage--if this suboption is checkmarked, files will only be stored in OneDrive storage.


If OneDrive is active on the system, there are also apparently right-click options available that might be worth checking.




Terrie

[woody649]

Originally Posted by terrie

There is apparently a configuration option for OneDrive--perhaps in Control Panel? One of the suboptions available is "Files On-Demand" and this should be UNchecked if one wants files store both locally and via OneDrive storage--if this suboption is checkmarked, files will only be stored in OneDrive storage.

I found the settings by locating OneDrive in File Explorer and right clicking the OneDrive icon.

"Files-on-Demand" is checked in my settings, but my files don't get saved to OneDrive unless I specifically save them there.

[Barrie Greed]

Originally Posted by Bo Aakerstrom

Here's Microsoft's instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-6efb09f944b0

I have mine permanently paused, so I can access any synced files whenever I want to.

Bo
Thanks for the link. We have been out all day so I have only just got to this. It's a quarter to midnight so I'm not going to try to get my head around this now. Hopefully I'll be able to report back success tomorrow.


Barrie Greed

[Barrie Greed]

Bo


That worked fine - at least for the moment. I simply unlinked the account so OneDrive no longer appears in Windows Explorer. Everything should now stay on the laptop. I do not think there is a need to go as far as uninstalling it.


Barrie Greed