Cannot remove dropbox from my company laptop

[Mark S]

Hi there, I have a problem.

I installed dropbox on my work laptop to help me work between it and my personal desktop (which is much more powerful).

The coimpany instructed me to remove it due to security concerns which I did. However, my desktop and a lot of folders are still showing in the address bar as being accessed via dropbox. If I uninstall drop box then I cannot access my desktop anymore and the right click context menu will not show.

When I reinstall it, even though I've deselected all folders so they do not sync, then I can access my desktop again. 

I thought it may be the setting to access the files via explorer rather than dropbox, but even after I changed that it's the same.

When I go to my personal folder under the users file there's no desktop folder showing, in my dropbox folder there there is a folder with the name My PC (LAPTOP-MarkS) (my laptop's name) and inside that there's a desktop folder. I think this must be the issue, but how to fix it?

How can I uninstall dropbox from my laptop as instructed by my employer without messing up my entire windows system? I am in trouble if I cannot figure this out (I might get dismissed from the company), please help.

Kind regards, Mark

[Walter]

Hello there @Mark S; welcome to our Community!

Did you happen to enable the computer backup feature upon installing the desktop app on your computer(s)?

If so, you can disable it using these steps. 

Once you're done, you can uninstall the desktop app normally and delete the remaining -now local- Dropbox folder if needed.

Let me know how it goes, Mark!

[Mark S · Accepted solution]

Hi Walter,

Thank you very much for your help, for sure that's what's causing the issue, however I'm still not out of the woods as when I try to switch the back up off it wont do it giving me the message 'Cannot switch off as MyPC has been renamed or moved, undo this change and try again' so I appear to be stuck with it'. However, I managed to siwtch off syncing with Desktop and Documents, the only one it refuses to let go of is the Downloads folder (all the folders are listed under MyPC so if it was not an issue with the Desktop and Documents, I don't understand why it would be for the Download folder.

Anyway, although i'm a bit nervous about it, hopefully if I uninstall Dropbox then it will solve the issue, though I may lose access to my downloads folder I guess, in which case I'll have to have dropbox on my laptop if i want to access it which seems bonkers.

Kind regards, Mark

[Mark S]

Hi Roger,

Just to let you know I uninstalled Dropbox and all seems OK, not sure what the issue with downloads or mypc folder was but it seems to be clean of all dropbox related issues and back as it should be so a massive thank you for that (phew!).

Kind regards, Mark

[Walter]

Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Mark. I'm happy to hear it's sorted now.

See you around the Community and enjoy the remainder of your week!