I want to rid myself of 'One Drive/Sky Drive' on Windows 8.1 home. [SOLVED]

[RetroJay]

Hi all.

Just wanted to pick your brains for a moment.

On my 'Windows 8.1 home edition' desktop computer I have the 'One Drive' folder, which was called 'Sky Drive'.
I wish to get shot of this program as I don't use it, nor wish to ever use it.
I have managed to uninstall it from 'Program features' (add and remove). however...
Reading on-line people were saying this couldn't be done.

There is still the matter of removing the folder from 'File explorer', which I can't get rid of.
Others have suggested using 'regedit' but I really do not want to tamper with registry entries.
People are, also, saying that you can use 'gpedit.msc' (from the Run command) to rid yourself of this useless program.
Unfortunately, it appears that 'Windows 8.1 home edition' doesn't have this feature (only Pro and Enterprise).

Now, I have downloaded a 'registry' file from 'Windows 8 forums' which is supposed to disable 'One Drive/Sky Drive' but am always wary about such things.

With this file sitting in my 'Downloads' I don't want to do anything else until I have enquired as to whether anyone else has either got rid of 'One Drive' another way or
used this 'Rgistry Download' from 'Windows 8 forums'.

Any help on this matter would be very... Well helpful, really.

Yours.
Jay.

[Adeel]

Hello.

Make a backup of your current registry first and then install that "downloaded registry". If something wrong happens, you can always use your backup registry to revert any changes made by the "downloaded registry". I hope it helps.

[RetroJay]

Hi Adeel S. Ahmed.

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, I suppose I could do that, just in case that "Downloaded Registry" do-dah thingy is bad. (I may have overdone the ' on my first post.)

Thanks for your help.

Yours.
Jay.

[Khris]

Hi Jay,

just open the file with a text editor and you'll see this:

Code: text

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Skydrive]
"DisableFileSync"=dword:00000001

Which is completely harmless and does exactly what it's supposed to.

[RetroJay]

Hi Khris.

Good to hear from you.

That's great.
The only problem is, whenever I try to Open with wordpad to view the file it keeps asking me if I want to run the file.
So I can't see if it is the same as you have showed me.


Edit:
Forget what I just said.
After some time I managed to view the file and it says exactly what you said it would say.
I merged the reg file and The 'One Drive' folder has now departed my system.
The only remnants of it are on the Metro screen.
If I click on it a page opens up to tell me it has been disabled, which is just what I want.

Thank you for your help on this, Khris

Yours.
Jay.