Dropbox Link stays in windows explorer after uninstall

[Sneijder]

I uninstalled Dropbox, but the Explorer still has the dropbox link. Tried uninstalling via Programs and Features and via the uninstaller. Machine has been rebootet. How can I get rid of it?

[Lusil]

Hey @Sneijder!

Initially, thanks for the proactive screenshot, that really does help in understanding what you’re referring to. Note that what you’re seeing is the folder that’s left behind after an uninstall procedure, because when you uninstall the Dropbox desktop app, your files don’t get deleted. 

This folder then contains all the files and folders that were syncing up until that point. In other words, it’s just like any other folder on your computer now and it’s not syncing. If you want to remove it, you can go ahead and delete it.

Hope this helped. Let me know if you have any more questions! 

[Sneijder · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately that won't help. I already did delete the folder and reboot my machine. The link stayed.

My solution was to crawl the registry for {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A} and set System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree  to 0 in every instance. If I remember correctly there were 3 entries with ID. After a reboot the Icon is now gone.

[Lusil]

Hey again @Sneijder, thanks for your prompt reply! Although changing the registry isn’t something we’d recommend, I’m glad to hear you were able to resolve your concern in the end.

If you have any other questions in the future, don’t hesitate to get back to us. In the mean time, have a wonderful day ahead! 

[Issam997]

Awsome! For me I had to update in these 4 places:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]

Doesn't seem there is another way other than updating the registry though!

[zembobane]

DROPBOX SUPPORT, are you seriously pretending that you don't understand the issue? Wow. You CANNOT delete the file on the lefthand side of Windows Explorer! So please give us another solution. How do you get Dropbox completely removed? I uninstalled it from Programs and Features and it STILL shows in Windows Explorer. WHY?

[Lusil]

Hi there @zembobane, welcome to the Dropbox Community!

If you're having trouble removing the Dropbox folder from the left-hand side of your Windows Explorer, you can try the steps to advance reinstall without actually reinstalling (following steps 1-4).

Let me know how it goes!

[anarfox]

I had the same issue and went through the registry looking for {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A} but it didn't help. Turns out there's another key to look for: {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1B}.

I won't list all the places I found it on beacuse it was litered all over the registry (like 20+ locations), but fixing this key as well resolved the issue for me.

Dropbox, you really need to look over your uinstaller. Littering the registry with keys and leaving them there during an uninstall isn't good practie. Not to mention all the junk files I had to manually delete from all the appdata folders.

[Floffy]

It shouldn't be difficult for Dropbox to add some options so that we can choose which uninstall to perform:

• Repair Dropbox (Reinstall and fix common issues)
• Full uninstall (Delete everything related to the application itsef)
• Delete the Dropbox folder ?

3 simple options which can definitely make everyone happy!

[yafirst]

@Lusil

I have the same issue. I followed directions on the page you posted, but this didn't solve the problem.