Ghost folder OneDrive cannot be deleted

Question

_{Friday, December 30, 2016 6:40 PM | 1 vote}

I have never used OneDrive and don’t plan to ever upload any files to the cloud, so I found several methods online to disable it, then tried to uninstall it. I managed to delete the real OneDrive folder, but now I have its ghost folder. Running chkdsk found no problems. I found several suggestions for deleting it in another post:

1 Right click this folder, click “Properties” , check the Attributes, remove the “Read-only” option and click “OK” –[Read only was not checked]

2 Drag this folder to recycle Bin instead of using delete button

3 Login with Safe Mode and delete it for test

4 Open Windows Explorer, click desktop on the left pane, and delete the folder

5 Use command to delete the folder:

1.     Run command prompt as administrator
2.     Use command “Del c:\users\username\desktop\foldername” and press Enter

3)  Use command “Del C:\Users\Username\OneDrive” and press Enter

None of these worked.

In case you need to know the things I did to get rid of the original OneDrive folder, I’ll list them below (but I’m not sure I’ve got the sequence in order):

I think the first thing I did was to open the Group Policy Editor. I navigated to the following folder:

Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\OneDrive

double-clicked the “Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage” policy setting in the right pane, set it to “Enabled,” and clicked “OK.”

I kept trying different things to get rid of every OneDrive folder clutter that I could see in Windows Explorer. I followed some online instructions to uninstall OneDrive and also to remove the OneDrive folder from my User folder:

In command prompt as administrator I typed:

taskkill /f /im OneDrive.exe

%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

I also edited the registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6} from value 1 to value 0.

Maybe I need to undo everything I did? Maybe reinstalling OneDrive will correct whatever is wrong, but I'm worried that reinstalling might make things worse. I don't even know how to go about reinstalling it since I've made such a mess.

If somebody can figure out what I can do to get rid of this ghost OneDrive folder, I would be very grateful.

All replies (2)

_{Monday, January 2, 2017 2:36 AM}

Hi Dawn A,

The main issue is to remove the "OneDrive" folder from Windows Explorer, right?

I have tried to modify the registry key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}
It could work well. We may need to restart the machine to make it take effect.

"Maybe I need to undo everything I did?"

If system restore is available, we could restore the machine to a previous normal point.

Best regards

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

_{Monday, January 2, 2017 5:38 AM}

Try run or cmd,type:  services.msc  locate a running or listed service,double click,reset its run properties.Also,in

regedit/registry,expand: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/software,chk for its listing,uninstall is thru a right click on it.

Next would be: HKEY_LOCAL_USER/software,do same.