Windows 10 Tip: Shut down OneDrive Completely

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For all you Windows 10 users that aren't interested in using Microsoft's OneDrive, you can actually shut the service off altogether to prevent it from running at start up. You can find the complete rundown here.

In Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, you can use Group Policy to make this change. Open Local Group Policy Editor (Gpedit.msc) and go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive. Double-click the policy Prevent The Usage Of OneDrive For File Storage and set it to Enabled. After you restart your PC, you'll find that the OneDrive icon is no longer in the navigation pane and the sync client no longer runs.
 
Thanks, I just had a little error box last night when booted up saying I couldn't connect to OneDrive. Yeah, didn't want to connect to OneDrive.
 
B00nie said:
Really dumb how you need special instructions to disable bloat in Windows these days.
Click to expand...

I don't consider OD to be bloat. Its extremely useful. The company I work for uses Microsoft to manage our email, file sharing, and teleconferences.
However, I don't want it on my home PC.
 
Give Microsoft long enough and they'll disable and abandon OneDrive themselves. They've already stripped some of the best features like placeholders, and gimped the free storage space, that its another one of those things like Windows Mobile where they put so little effort in or outright turn people off that you wonder if they ever really wanted it to be successful.
 
alxlwson said:
I don't consider OD to be bloat. Its extremely useful. The company I work for uses Microsoft to manage our email, file sharing, and teleconferences.
However, I don't want it on my home PC.
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Same here, I don't want even the theoretical chance that something syncs while I'm online gaming.
 
Interesting. I didn't even realize the service was still running. I clicked on the icon and went in and told it not to start on boot, and had thought that was the end of it.

Not surprised it isn't though.
 
alxlwson said:
I don't consider OD to be bloat. Its extremely useful. The company I work for uses Microsoft to manage our email, file sharing, and teleconferences.
However, I don't want it on my home PC.
Click to expand...

I'm the opposite.

I want absolutely zero cloud ever under any circumstance.

If something of mine winds up on a remote server, I want it to be because I explicitly entered the server name into a client and manually uploaded it there.

I want to be completely 100% declouded please. No cloud ever, at work or at home.
 
I loved OneDrive back when it was SkyDrive. Then Microsoft fucked it all up so I went to Google Drive. Oh well.
 
Or use my script commands and remove it completely

taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exe

%SystemRoot%\System32\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

REG Delete "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}" /f
REG Delete "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}" /f
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm the opposite.

I want absolutely zero cloud ever under any circumstance.

If something of mine winds up on a remote server, I want it to be because I explicitly entered the server name into a client and manually uploaded it there.

I want to be completely 100% declouded please. No cloud ever, at work or at home.
Click to expand...
What programs put stuff on One Drive without you putting it in that folder?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm the opposite.

I want absolutely zero cloud ever under any circumstance.

If something of mine winds up on a remote server, I want it to be because I explicitly entered the server name into a client and manually uploaded it there.

I want to be completely 100% declouded please. No cloud ever, at work or at home.
Click to expand...

+1

Microsoft needs to change their versions of Windows 10.
Instead of Home/Pro/enterprise, they should have a free version (currently Windows Home and they can leave all the spyware, etc.), a bloat/cloud free version (instead of Pro), and enterprise version which would be basically the same but with enterprise licensing.
All the bloat could be available to add as a feature on pro/enterprise, like in Windows Server. If you want one drive, Skype, Internet account login, etc, you should be able add them separately.
 
For those who are concerned with Win 10 bloat or privacy, this - and many other small tweaks - should have been done right after installing. At it's default, Win 10 is a mess, but with an hour of reading and moving sliders or creating some group policy rules, one can get things reasonably locked down.

I'm a paying Dropbox user, so no OD for me, though I did manage to hold on to my 15GB which is apparently going to waste.
 
Wolf_Tech said:
Or run LTSB no bloat no store nothing.
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But it's still Windows 10, and only some very rare people can run that OS legitimately - let's face it, 99.5% of the people using LTSB on their own personal computers these days are not doing it legally or legitimately considering it's a volume license product and you can't buy individual licenses. Sure, some folks do have MSDN subscriptions through a job (it's rare to find some individual willing to pay the costs for such a subscription) but that doesn't necessarily entitle them to use LTSB on their own personal computing devices - on work issued hardware sure, but in that situation the I.T. department would typically have the installation locked down pretty hard already (yes of course you might be one of those I.T. people in charge of doing such lockdowns obviously).

If you have to run a particular version of Windows 10 - and even THAT version requires manual configuration edits to really tighten it down in terms of privacy and telemetry, it's not that way by default since it is Windows 10 after all - just to get past the crap Microsoft is pulling then seriously you're just doing it wrong.
 
Prisoner849 said:
For those who are concerned with Win 10 bloat or privacy, this - and many other small tweaks - should have been done right after installing. At it's default, Win 10 is a mess, but with an hour of reading and moving sliders or creating some group policy rules, one can get things reasonably locked down.
Click to expand...

An hour+ having to google for hacks, GPO and regedits to "tame" Windows 10 is completely absurd. And for what? Because DX12 might be relevant in 3+ years? I can't think of any other major or must-have feature over 7 or 8.1

And then every major update, Microsoft rips out all those changes and resets everything back to the defaults they want. F that.

Windows 7/8.1 = You ride the horse
Windows 10 = The horse rides you
 
sadsteve said:
Yeah. I did it the easy way, just did a restored one of my Win 8.1 backups.
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Pretty sure Windows 8 had one drive built in also. So you didn't remove anything.

nilepez said:
What programs put stuff on One Drive without you putting it in that folder?
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Yeah, I can't think of any. My phone (windows phone) puts backups out there but I can turn that off. My Xbox One can save game clips that I edit out there but I have to tell it to do so. Anything on my PC I have to tell it myself to save there. So you are always going to be telling things to save out there.
 
alxlwson said:
I don't consider OD to be bloat. Its extremely useful. The company I work for uses Microsoft to manage our email, file sharing, and teleconferences.
However, I don't want it on my home PC.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a product they should be selling if its that great...

That's right, the competition in that field is to great. Lets just bundle it. Sounds like Microsoft.
 
DPI said:
An hour+ having to google for hacks, GPO and regedits to "tame" Windows 10 is completely absurd. And for what? Because DX12 might be relevant in 3+ years? I can't think of any other major or must-have feature over 7 or 8.1

And then every major update, Microsoft rips out all those changes and resets everything back to the defaults they want. F that.

Windows 7/8.1 = You ride the horse
Windows 10 = The horse rides you
Click to expand...

While I don't disagree with much of what you wrote, Deus Ex MD will be DX12 in 2 weeks. Not sure if relevancy is as far off as you think.
 
Prisoner849 said:
While I don't disagree with much of what you wrote, Deus Ex MD will be DX12 in 2 weeks. Not sure if relevancy is as far off as you think.
Click to expand...

I would be willing to bet... DX 12 will only be faster then DX 11 in those games for 1 in 20 setups. The main issue with DX 12 is the same thing that is its only real advantage. Letting programmers "touch" more silicone is awsome and all.. I mean its what every man really wants. Of course there can be to much of a good thing. DX 12 was designed to be advantageous to consoles, not PCs. Sure there is some upside for specific GPU/CPU combos, most will more likely be looking at decreases in performance with 12. Low level APIs are for consoles and smartphones with set in stone hardware the developers can optimise for... not open PC platforms. (its like people forgot the entire reason for graphics APIs to exist in the first place was so developers could code to one standard and the manufacturers would make sure everyone could play)
 
Prisoner849 said:
While I don't disagree with much of what you wrote, Deus Ex MD will be DX12 in 2 weeks. Not sure if relevancy is as far off as you think.
Click to expand...

This is certainly going to be interesting considering the complaints about performance under DX 11 currently. If DX 12 does come out and there's decent or better performance gains, I can hear conspiracy theories already. And if there's nothing gained to or even worse performance it'll be "we told you so". Either way there's going to be backlash over DX 12. However, I'm guessing most people won't care if there is performance benefit.
 
Exavior said:
Pretty sure Windows 8 had one drive built in also. So you didn't remove anything.



Yeah, I can't think of any. My phone (windows phone) puts backups out there but I can turn that off. My Xbox One can save game clips that I edit out there but I have to tell it to do so. Anything on my PC I have to tell it myself to save there. So you are always going to be telling things to save out there.
Click to expand...
Ok. I stopped the service, because I don't use it, but I'm not sure it really matters either. I barely use Dropbox, and I always manually upload stuff. I may reinstall spideroak. That sucker seems about as secure as it gets (lose your password and you're SOL, as I recall).
 
heatlesssun said:
This is certainly going to be interesting considering the complaints about performance under DX 11 currently. If DX 12 does come out and there's decent or better performance gains, I can hear conspiracy theories already. And if there's nothing gained to or even worse performance it'll be "we told you so". Either way there's going to be backlash over DX 12. However, I'm guessing most people won't care if there is performance benefit.
Click to expand...

Isn't the first round of games usually a bit slower than the older version?
 
I use OD as well because it's how the City I am bidding work for wants to communicate bids and stuff. I dunno I had to create an alter personality of myself, see I like to live off the grid but when I turned off all the telemetry, MS anal probes and ever intrusive apps the helicopters started hovering over the property and there were strange folks in the woods. Now that my alter human has embraced the intrusive lifestyle the helicopters are gone and so forth.
 
MavericK said:
Can't you just go Task Manager -> Startup -> disable OneDrive? Works for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah and just delete the Icon from the Taskbar using the Taskbar Icon option in settings. No sign of OneDrive in Task Manager etc.

I do wonder how clever some of these tech folks are writing these articles. When you read most of them it's quite apparent they haven't bothered to actually USE the OS.

Like all these convoluted Cortana kill articles. All you have to do is rename the Cortana Folder...still. Simple.
 
Just had the displeasure of reinstalling w10 ENT at work, for testing and after the anniversary update, more useless crap was added, like duolingo and wunderlist apps, cmon really?

After installing, i have to go around looking for tips and bullshit ways like this to uninstall all the forced crap that comes with it, because the option to uninstall is removed or hidden.

In contrast, I installed Solus Linux to also test it and is such a clean install, just the necessary software, then rest, you need to install it yourself, instead of removing crap.

Really sucks that we are virtually prisoners of M$.

And the DX12 bs, cmon guys, you should let your money talk, support and hype Vulkan, so we can finally move forward.
 
grtitan said:
Just had the displeasure of reinstalling w10 ENT at work, for testing and after the anniversary update, more useless crap was added, like duolingo and wunderlist apps, cmon really?
Click to expand...

That's odd. I've done clean and upgrade installs of Windows 10 Ent, Pro and Home and Duolingo and Wunderlist aren't installed be default.

grtitan said:
And the DX12 bs, cmon guys, you should let your money talk, support and hype Vulkan, so we can finally move forward.
Click to expand...

The average person simply wants to play games. I spent a lot of money on this sig rig to play the latest and greatest with support for all of the latest and greatest. If a game that I want to play uses Vulkan or DX 12 I'll buy it. I'll probably pickup Deus Ex: MD tomorrow though I kind of want to see what DX 12 brings to the table first.
 
Prisoner849 said:
While I don't disagree with much of what you wrote, Deus Ex MD will be DX12 in 2 weeks. Not sure if relevancy is as far off as you think.
Click to expand...
Which would mean something if it wasn't already possible to play it on DX11 + games like Ashes of the Singularity (arguably a game that could benefit much more from DX12) only showed about a 10% performance difference, typically less if on Nvidia hardware.

DirectX12 is the new DirectX10. Microsoft also artificially locked that to a new OS that had some objective problems compared to the one before it and set back adoption rates by years. Don't worry, unless it's a Microsoft exclusive (Gears of War, Quantum Break), you're not going to REQUIRE DirectX 12 for many years. It's simply not worth the lost sales to developers.

There are reasons to upgrade to 10 and there are reasons to stay off it. DX12 isn't going to be a major one for non-MS games for many years still.
 
Linux - have to use a nerd grade guide to activate features
Windows 10 - have to use a nerd-grade guide to deactivate features.

Windows 10 is now like the evil-universe doppelganger of linux.
 
jpm100 said:
Windows 10 - have to use a nerd-grade guide to deactivate features.
Click to expand...

Except you don't...many of these clickbait articles detail some far more complicated way to perform a simple task that is really unnecessary. See my post above.

It's cool to hate on Windows 10 right now for some reason. *shrug*
 
Personally windows 10 (even with the anniversary update) is fine by me. maybe it's to each one's taste I guess, I'm keeping one drive since i'm using it rather than dropbox.
 
MavericK said:
Except you don't...many of these clickbait articles detail some far more complicated way to perform a simple task that is really unnecessary. See my post above.

It's cool to hate on Windows 10 right now for some reason. *shrug*
Click to expand...
That's only true of today. The point of forced updates is they can turn things back on that you already turned off or remove options entirely, so you can never say with certainty that however you configure it will always stay that way (unless you have enterprise edition). If you honestly don't understand the Windows 10 hostility, I saw a great post from another thread on the topic that really boils it all down:

michalrz said:
All news is a heads-up, brevity focused conversation starter.
If there was no issue, and the threads were just clickbait, you wouldn't see [H] going on for a dozen pages. Normally "water is wet" news don't gather crowds. If Steve/KBN were posting crap, the community would call them out for this.
If you think this uproar is the result of wrong assumptions about the product, you need to address the claims themselves without going into why they are an issue for someone.
My issue with the news here is that they could be rolled up into the following trends:
1. MS is setting questionable defaults for personal data related features. Then they re-set them after user intervention. Then some of the settings become moved/removed. Then Enterprise users are provided with granular control over all settings. If someone got to keep those switches, then Microsoft did listen and deliver the feature. So Microsoft itself recognizes this as a potential issue.
2. Features are disappearing or becoming otherwise harder to find and use. This is in contrast with what is stated in the Lifecycle Factsheet. Updates can add or fix, period.
3. Control over local installations of Windows is becoming limited by push updates that cannot be prevented on all systems.

This is basically the basic theme hiding in all these news articles. We're basically having the same discussions over and over and over again. And with each iteration, posters from both camps are losing their patience. That's why the call-outs and namecalling (moaners, shills, tin foil hats, control freaks...) are increasing.
Click to expand...
 
tetris42 said:
Which would mean something if it wasn't already possible to play it on DX11 + games like Ashes of the Singularity (arguably a game that could benefit much more from DX12) only showed about a 10% performance difference, typically less if on Nvidia hardware.

DirectX12 is the new DirectX10. Microsoft also artificially locked that to a new OS that had some objective problems compared to the one before it and set back adoption rates by years. Don't worry, unless it's a Microsoft exclusive (Gears of War, Quantum Break), you're not going to REQUIRE DirectX 12 for many years. It's simply not worth the lost sales to developers.
Click to expand...
Isn't DX12 supposed to run work with older hardware? I'd swear that was in a linked article a year or 2 ago.
 
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