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Sintrance's avatar
Sintrance
New member | Level 2
5 years ago
Solved

OneDrive has been uninstalled, but DropBox is still detecting it and denying sync to Desktop

OneDrive comes as part of the Windows 10 (Home, 64-Bit) bundle—I have recently switched out my boot drive SSD for a larger one (to better set up for DropBox cloud syncing) and installed Windows as usual. I immediately uninstalled OneDrive and began setting up DropBox, only to find that DropBox is keeping me from syncing to my Desktop even though OneDrive has been removed from my computer.

 

I made sure to disable all OneDrive syncing before uninstalling it just in case of any latent evidence of OneDrive remaining on my system. All file locations are in their original locations and haven't been moved. I've shut down, restarted, made sure that there are no active OneDrive instances running, but DropBox is still detecting OneDrive somehow. I'd like to know how this check is performed so that I can prevent this false flag and successfully sync my Desktop.

 

At the moment I am paying for the 2TB plan and am unable to sync anything because of this issue—this is a bit of a major problem for Windows users, and I've seen other DropBox customers with similar questions who were unable to find a solution. I'd prefer to be able to use DropBox as it was intended to be used since I have a renewing subscription. Screenshot below.

 

 

Thanks for any help!

  • To anyone looking for the solution, the problem I was experiencing is that Windows 10 packages have the Desktop located under OneDrive in new Windows installations. This remains even after completely uninstalling OneDrive. This isn't immediately apparent since the directories look like this in the Explorer sidebar - 

     

     

    However, upon further inspection through the properties tab, the Desktop is indeed under OneDrive, which is at this point uninstalled and an effectively unused file path - 

     

     

    By selecting "Restore Default", I was able to properly set the parent folder and fully remove OneDrive from the equation.

     

    I'm leaving this up in case anyone has a similar experience as none of the other related questions asked included this information or any solution of their own. Good luck and I hope this helps!

4 Replies

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  • Sintrance's avatar
    Sintrance
    New member | Level 2
    5 years ago

    To anyone looking for the solution, the problem I was experiencing is that Windows 10 packages have the Desktop located under OneDrive in new Windows installations. This remains even after completely uninstalling OneDrive. This isn't immediately apparent since the directories look like this in the Explorer sidebar - 

     

     

    However, upon further inspection through the properties tab, the Desktop is indeed under OneDrive, which is at this point uninstalled and an effectively unused file path - 

     

     

    By selecting "Restore Default", I was able to properly set the parent folder and fully remove OneDrive from the equation.

     

    I'm leaving this up in case anyone has a similar experience as none of the other related questions asked included this information or any solution of their own. Good luck and I hope this helps!

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    5 years ago
    Hey Sintrance, thanks for reaching out about this.

    This is great, I'm happy to see you were able to figure out and resolve this.

    This should definitely prove useful for other users, in case they come across this error as well. 

    If you have any other questions, make sure to let us know!
  • KingAlbright1's avatar
    KingAlbright1
    Explorer | Level 3
    4 years ago

    Does Onedrive need to be uninstalled from my PC for Dropbox to work or does it just have to be disabled?

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    4 years ago

    Hey KingAlbright1, thanks for joining the discussion here.

     

    I just wanted to clarify that you don't need to uninstall One Drive from your computer to install the Dropbox desktop app. You'll only need to disable it if you want to use the computer backup feature. 

     

    I hope this helps!

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