Windows 10 Onedrive is gone!

[bertie11]

I think I might have/must have removed Onedrive app for my Win 10 HP Envy. Is it possible to get it back again, and how?

Thanks.

 

[bertie11]

Hi

Have you looked at this article, it has a registry hack that both removes One Drive and Restores it.

How to Disable OneDrive and Remove It From File Explorer on Windows 10

Perhaps if you ran the remove hack and then the restore hack it would get it working again.

Mike

Hi Mike, thanks for taking the time to pursue this for me. Trouble is, I don't get the Onedrive icon in the system tray, not even when I look in hidden icons, nor is it listed in customise which icons to show. Nor is it listed in File Explorer.

If I search for OneDrive, there are a whole bunch of files, mainly dll's which I won't touch. There is no uninstall.exe anywhere either.

I did write to IOBit who make Advanced Systen Care and they said that there is no way to get it back so I pointed out it shouldn't be in their list of programs to be uninstalled if it isn't being uninstalled. They must have known that it is integral to Win 10. They replied saying that they will pass my comments on to their s/w team who will look closely at this!

I think I will just stop worrying about this. I use iDrive cloud which is way better than OneDrive anyway. I only wanted to use OD after I bought a Windows phone and I could have managed both devices and OneDrive. I found a standalone app calle Music Player which is way better than the rubbish like X-Box and the other integrated player on the phone which wouldn't even play most of my music, it just errored all the time.

So I thank you fro your efforts, and those others who have offered help. I shall leave OneDRive until I ever need to do a reset.

Mike

 

[bertie11]

Another thought. I did ask earlier in this thread. I upgraded from Win 8.1 using the 64 bit .iso from Microsoft. My Win 10 has been validated. What would happen if I ran the .iso file again? Presumably it would rewrite all the missing OneDrive files? Or would there other problems?

 

[bertie11]

Does anyone have a response to my last please? My current build is 1511 10586. If I obtained the ISO for that build what would happen if I ran it? Would it replace all the missing Onedrive files and get it working again and would it leave everything else intact and working?

Many thanks.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

You could probably just use the built in options to refresh Windows 10 to get it back to the way it was.

How to refresh, reset, or restore your PC - Windows Help

Open Settings and type in Refresh in the search box.
Then select Reset this PC.

Mike

 

[bertie11]

Thanks Mike, I don't want to refresh windows 10 as that will give me a whole load of extra work.

My question was though, about using an ISO to overwrite everything but leaving my files and programs intact, just like I did when I updated from 8.1 to 10 in the expectation that it rewrite the Onedrive files back correctly. It's just that I thought I had seen somewhere that the ISO can be re-run at any time and I'm just trying to confirm that.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

If you can do that, I'm not aware of it.
That doesn't mean that it can't be done, but I can't find anything that discusses doing that.

I suppose that if you still have your Windows.old file you could go back to your previous version of Windows and update again, but that seems likely to be a bigger hassle then just doing a refresh and reinstalling your software.

Maybe someone else here knows a way to do that, I'd be interested in how it's done myself.

One of the things I loved about Windows 7 was that you could do a repair install that would overwrite the OS and leave your installed programs etc. working.

I was very disappointed when I found you couldn't do that in Windows 8.

As far as I know installing from a disk made from an ISO file will give you the same options as doing a Refresh.
It will retain all of you data, but much of your software may have to be reinstalled.

I don't install any of my software on Drive C:\ (I have Windows on a SSD all by itself) so a lot of stuff will still work even after doing a Refresh.

I've found that a some stuff will create new registry connections the first time it's run, but I've also found a lot of software that has to be reinstalled even if the program is still on the disk.

Do you have a Recovery Point from before the OneDrive vanished?
I had to go back to a previous recovery point this week because my File Explorer quit working for some reason.

There's a possibility that, that could solve the problem.

Once you get everything working I'd recommend (I'm always recommending this to people) that you make regular system images (i.e. once a month) so that you can recover from stuff like this quickly.

I use EaseUS Todo backup, it's free and has never failed to restore my computer when I needed it to.

Mike

 

[Sonny]

you can mount your iso and then run it you will have the options to save your files. It should repair your OS. I have done it a couple of times with success

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Will it also save all the installed programs?
I've done it so that my files are all there, but the software gets deleted if it's on the C:\ drive, and may not run it it's not?

Mike

 

[Sonny]

If I remember right the only ones I had to re-install was ccleaner. and my anti-virus. I cannot say for sure. I have not had to use it in a long time.

 

[bertie11]

Hi Sonny & Mike, thanks for your thoughts on this MIke, I appreciate it.

Sonny, I've always assumed it would be like doing an update from 8.1 to 10 which I've done on 2 laptops and I didn't lose any programs when I did that. All my programs are on C:\. Good news that it can be done. I had to remove my Webroot security before I could get the iso to do the job, I then re-installed it once the job had finished. Maybe that is what you found? I may well give it a go when I have a few hours spare!

Mike, I deleted windows.old once I was happy with 10 so I can't do that anyway. Recovery from an earlier point I tried but I expect the ones I had didn't go back far enough. I'm wondering if running the iso is the latest way of doing a repair install?

I do keep system backups, I use Acronis and Macrium and do one backup on Thursday and one on Sunday so I have belt & braces but I only keep them for a month else my disks get full up. For years, I always made a D:\ partition where I put all my non MS programs but when I bought this laptop last year I had a brainfart and forgot to do the same!

Is your SSD drive in a desktop or is it an external? What size do you need to take all your programs (I'm assuming you use it for non-MS programs only)? I would only be able to use an external SSD.

My thanks to you both!

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I have a 250 Gig SSD, internal drive, but I only put Windows, my swap file, and Windows related programs like CCleaner, Defraggler, anti malware, email client, browser (small stuff) etc on it.

My C:\ drive is about 73 Gigabytes total.

All my games and graphics software, film editing, programs and that sort of thing are on my D:\ drive (415 Gigabytes).

All my data, music, graphics etc, (about 150 Gigabytes) are on a partition on my third drive and one of the partitions on this drive has all my system image files on it.

Another partition on this drive just has random saved stuff, about 90 Gigabytes.

Doing it this way means I can backup and restore my system image in about 20 minutes because I'm not backing up my software.

All the stuff I can't afford to lose ever, is backed up on at least 2 of 3 external hard drives.

Mike

 

[bertie11]

Looks like you have it all organised! It is so much easier with a desktop though, having room for extra drives and do on. I used to use desktops but they took up so much room that I decided to ditch it and use laptops instead.

I have another laptop that I'm looking to repair and upgrade to Windows 10 in due course, in which case I can use the Onedrive on that to send files etc to the cloud, which I can't do on this laptop. I can view the files but I have no way of sending them from this one but I would be able to do so on the repaired machine after transferring files across to it. Long winded, yes, but it would mean I don't need to disturb this one which is running just fine.

I can always try to iso route later on now that Sonny has already done this, which gives me more confidence!

 

[bertie11]

I found it at last!

Can I reinstall Windows 10 on my PC after upgrading?
Yes. Once you’ve upgraded to Windows 10 using the free upgrade offer, you can reinstall or perform a clean installation on the same device. You won’t need a product key to re-activate Windows 10 on the same hardware. For more information about how to create your own Windows 10 installation media, go to the Link Removed.

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

Apparently they have added an option that will let you save all your files and programs.
I'm sure this wasn't an option a while back when I was looking at this before.

This is the first time I've seen this.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Anyway good luck!

Mike

 

[helpifIcan]

Great Mike nice find this will be added to my troubleshooting tool box.

 

[bertie11]

Glad it helps! Reading it again it seems to give more options than Windows 7 did. I kept the iso discs from when I upgraded my 2 laptops because I knew I had seen this somewhere!