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Ben T.22's avatar
Ben T.22
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago
Solved

Completely disable "Dropbox on Startup"

When starting up my computer and logging in to the user account, I do NOT want Dropbox to be starting, at all.  The files Dropbox needs are not even accessible unless I as the user take a particular ...
  • Is_this_real's avatar
    Is_this_real
    6 years ago

    Hey ben

    I launched a boot trace to find the cause of the problem and I noticed that the corresponding option in the preferences of the application does not disable the startup at all. It has the only role of requesting a "quiet close" of the Dropbox processes during the startup phase. It also explain why you still see Dropbox in msconfig even after unchecking the box...

    That said, Dropbox create a key for its own startup, hidden in Windows registry, the only option to fully disable Dropbox at startup is to remove it from there.

    Lets find it in one of the following paths:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

    You should find the line:

    Dropbox "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dropbox\Client\Dropbox.exe" /systemstartup

    Backup it if necessary and just delete it. Done, no more Dropbox at startup!

    Note: You may have to repeat the operation regularly as Dropbox updates could recreate startup reg key anytime 😋