Windows 10 – OneDrive won’t start

Update January 22, 2021

People continue to find this post on Google and it keeps working. Note that there are a large number of comments on this post, the fix works for most but not everybody. If the fix in this post doesn’t work, scroll through the comments – there are a few other suggestions.

Also, the original Microsoft link is dead.

UPDATE JUNE 16, 2020

DEAR INTERNET – APPARENTLY THE FONT SIZE I USED BELOW – WHERE I NOT ONLY NAMED THE USER WHO POSTED IT BUT LINKED TO THE CONTENT THAT I COPIED AND PASTED – WAS NOT ENOUGH CREDIT FOR ‘pirwen’.  I DID NOT WRITE THIS CONTENT. I REPOSTED IT.  I DID NOT WRITE IT. I REPOSTED IT. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT MY ORIGINAL POST SAYS. BUT NOW IT SAYS SO IN  VERY LARGE FONT.

This post has apparently enraged ‘pirwen’ to a point that that THREE YEARS LATER he came back to say that it’s his content… over and over… posting like 10 times in the comments.  The reason my blog repost on this is #1 in Google search results is because the Microsoft community pages are garbage and his solution is buried under page after page of hidden answers. The Microsoft page is also locked for comments, so people comment here.

ONCE AGAIN, THIS IS CONTENT FROM ‘pirwen’.

————————————————————-
Original Post – March 6, 2017
OneDrive mysteriously stopped working on my Windows 10 laptop. I have no idea what went wrong, I tried reinstalling it even though it’s now part of Windows 10. Nothing worked. I finally came across this post and wanted to repost it in case it ever disappears. My situation was the same, the GPO setting was unset, which should have had the same effect, but I had to disable it to get One Drive working again.

User ‘pirwen’ posted the solution that worked for me at this link in the Microsoft Community.

“I remembered seeing an option to prevent the usage of OneDrive via the Group Policy editor, seems that there is also an option to force enable it. Here are the steps I followed:
On your keyboard hit Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog and type: gpedit.msc and hit Enter to open Local Group Policy Editor.
Next navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\OneDrive. In the right panel, double click Prevent the usage of OneDrive for File Storage.
Then here instead of selecting Enabled (as many tutorials suggest to disable OneDrive on Windows 10) I selected Disabled, and saved my changes. This option was originally unset, which should have worked just as if it was disabled, except it didn’t.
After doing this I opened OneDrive again and got a notification for an update. After a few seconds it opened, and was finally working again.”

———— Update November 9, 2020 ————

There is a comment buried deep below from user ‘geeky’ with a solution if you don’t have the group policy editor. I’m adding it here as the comment is getting lost.

For Windows editions without gpedit.msc:
1) Open regedit.exe
2) Navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive”
3) Delete the subkey “DisableFileSyncNGSC” (or change value from 1 to 0)
4) Start Onedrive.exe again

168 comments

  1. Tim Rowe

    No registry folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive (Windows 10 home)

    Still looking for a solution.

  2. Feb

    Wow! I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app several times already but didn’t solve the problem at all. It appeared when I searched for it but it won’t open. This really worked like magic. Thank you so much, Pirwen and Patrick!

  3. Isabel

    That was definitely the most funny technical post I’ve ever found. And also solved my Onedrive problem!
    Thank you pkremer for hosting the solution in a fine accessible place. I also thank Pirwen, but if it wasn’t for pkremer, your elegant suggestions wold forever be forgotten in the vast sea of internet bytes 😉

  4. Alkemyst

    Thanks for re-hosting this. It’s great Pirwen was the original suggester but I could not find his solution. Been dealing with Horizon VMWare VDI’s and OneDrive showed installed, but never opened. The right-click “Share” action was working and the App showed in Start Menu. It was perplexing. This fixed it instantly.

  5. Davide

    Thanks a lot! The solution to my problem came from a comment though… Since many people (like me) use a version of Windows without gpedit.msc it could be really useful to add the solution by “geeky” to your original post 🙂

  6. Defu Wang

    After windows update, onedrive failed to launch at all. It doesn’t appear in task manager or system tray. Nothing at all. tried all sorts of solutions on internet. Nothing worked until I came across this. It worked like magic.

  7. Morninlark

    Thanks pirwen for this awesome solution! Worked like a charm. And thanks Patrick for re-posting! I wouldn’t have found it so fast otherwise.

  8. Craig Rhinehart

    …that didn’t work for me, but this did:

    If OneDrive cannot be started in Windows 10, please check the following two settings:

    Check Registry.
    a) Press (Windows key) + R to open the Run box.
    b) Type regedit and click OK.
    c) Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive. Make sure DisableFileSyncNGSC is set to “0”. (It is also OK if the registry doesn’t exist)
    Check Group Policy settings.
    a) Press (Windows key) + R to open the Run box.

    b) Type gpedit.msc and click OK.

    c) In the Local Group Policy Editor, in the folder list under Local Computer Policy, navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive > Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage. Make sure it is set to “Not configured” or “Disabled”.

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/onedrive-wont-start/e1925180-a2e5-4e8a-8cbf-de3ff3be74b7

    1. Winer Vr

      My company IT guy tried multiple time reinstall of OneDrive and even ran MS Support and Recovery Assistant but without luck….
      But your solution is great and worked instantly. Good knowledge, keep it up!

  9. Nicola

    OMG THANK YOU! My IT engineer husband couldn’t figure it out and googling and finding your help first and it resolving the issue immediately has made me feel far superior haha.
    But honestly, thanks so much for this – it just made NO sense why it just stopped working!

  10. Chubbs

    You my friend are the shit! Worked perfect. Now it’s time to sit back and wait for EVERYTHING sync with my freshly load PC.

  11. Fjuron

    Worked. Thanks a lot!
    Wtf would it disable OneDrive when I plug in my phone to move over some music…
    Wired coding, Microsoft…

  12. Alexey Abramov

    Hi Patrick,
    thank you a lot – this was a real help – I can’t imagine how I could find a solution myself.
    Bless you.

    1. pkremer

      It’s still my most popular post and all I did is repost and link back to the original location. It vanished from the Microsoft website for a while but it’s back out there now.

  13. Joey

    Great solve detective!
    Worked like a charm. Saved me loads of time trying to fix it. Glad this was one of the top results when I searched for my issue.

    1. pkremer

      It’s my #1 most commented blog post and the content isn’t even mine. But thankfully I chose to copy and paste as well as link to the content, because it’s now gone from the original link.

      1. Pirwen

        Glad it worked for so many people!
        I’m not sure why you say that, but I can confirm it’s still available on the original link.

        1. pkremer

          MS did some kind of redesign of their communities and it blew up their links. I don’t know how long it was unavailable, but the link was definitely broken when I posted in March.

          1. Pirwen

            You published it about a month from when I posted that on the forums. Glad the post is helping you too. But at least make the reference to the original link more visible.

            Everyone is thinking you came up with the solution when it took someone else 3 full days of trial and error.

            Have a great 2020.

          2. pkremer

            Please. This post is dated March 6, 2017. You posted February 24, 2016 in some crappy Microsoft group that it took me like a month to find. So I reposted it WITH ATTRIBUTION.

            You seriously have nothing better to do than come back 3 years later and comment 10 times because – what, my font size wasn’t big enough? Well there you go, I fixed it for you, really big letters. Kindly go find something more constructive to do with your life.

  14. Adam Dresch

    This worked for me as well, running Windows 10 Pro, Onedrive had been working fine for weeks, then suddenly I noticed the icon was missing and nothing had synced for a while
    Tried to launch it from the start menu, nothing, no popups, nada
    I tried so many steps like resetting, reinstalling and registry hacks etc, nothing helped
    I did eventually get it to the login box, but it just stuck at Logging in…
    But this fixed the issue

  15. Oleh Stadnychuk

    This was so helpful!
    Thank you!

    However, I do not understand why these policies were not configured from the start, a new laptop, a fresh OS, the first install of all software … wonder!

    P.S.
    And in the same circumstances, the OneDrive version from the Microsoft Store for mobile cloud use – worked without problems.

  16. Laurent

    Yes !!! Thanks ! As you said I disable it long time ago and now needed it and forgot about this option !!!
    Great post !

  17. ITgreybeard

    You DA MAN! Worked immediately, no update even needed here. Thank you!!

    …and I must say: most Microsoft advice these days is awful, time-consuming, useless drivel. I hesitate to say that the MS online help from the sub-continent is almost all boilerplate. One in twenty-five posts from there has any relevant, let alone salient, information. They must be scored by the post or such, rather than by the usefulness of their existence on the support websites. I am so sorry to admit this, having worked with entirely capable colleagues from the regions. ;-(

  18. Jess Usopata

    Thanks a lot, it really helped!
    In fact, there is nonsense, since a Policy denying access set as Not Activated should be the same effect as Disabled, but it happens not.
    I wonder if this is a bug of 1803 update of Windows 10.
    Cheers!

    1. Justin

      I found this on another site. My OneDrive wouldn’t open, kept saying OneDrive.exe couldn’t be found… this fixed it for me.

      “Open the Command Prompt, type the onedrive uninstall command, depending on your system architecture.

      If you are using a 32-bit system, use the following command:

      %Systemroot%\System32\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

      If you are using a 64-bit system, use the following command:

      %Systemroot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

      Done this use the following command to reinstall the OneDrive application, depending on your system architecture, again.

      If you are using a 32-bit system, use the following command:

      %Systemroot%\System32\OneDriveSetup.exe

      If you are using a 64-bit system, use the following command:

      %Systemroot%\SysWOW64\OneDriveSetup.exe”

  19. Richy Bo

    Just showing more love for writing this post. Worked for me as well on Windows 10 version N. My settings were on ‘Not configured’ and I changed it Disabled and sure enough it now lets me launch it.

  20. David Dawson

    I saw a recommendation to check in local GP but not the registry. That wasn’t configured but the Registry was. Changed from 1 to 0 and OneDrive is back! Thanks for sharing this info.

  21. geeky

    For Windows editions without gpedit.msc:
    1) Open regedit.exe
    2) Navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive”
    3) Delete the subkey “DisableFileSyncNGSC” (or change value from 1 to 0)
    4) Start Onedrive.exe again

    1. Jodi

      I have ZERO idea what I’m doing here but, the suggestion Patrick had didn’t work. My laptop does not have gpedit.msc so I used your suggestion next. I found HKEY LOCAL MACHINE…that is all it says, not the rest and I definitely can’t find the next thing under any of the listed subkeys. Any other suggestions?
      TIA

      1. pkremer

        Maybe you don’t have administrative privileges? Windows can’t function with the entire HKML/SOFTWARE registry branch missing.

  22. Jose

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    After one year with problems in Onedrive, it is solved!!

    And before August I contact MicroS… and one person “technical” not solved after 4 email’s, and after four email he not answer more email’s and I forget this issue. But today some friend insist to use… and search, search… and find you!!!

    Thanks
    Obrigado!
    Jo

  23. Michael

    The problem I have is this and that Onedrive isn’t listed under Windows Components. I’ve tried reinstalling it and it still won’t start or show up for me to try this solution.

  24. Nate

    THANK YOU
    omg thank you. It works.

    THREE HOURS i’ve been fighting with this goddamned beast from hell.

    How to buy you a nice dinner?

    1. pkremer

      Happy that this post helped! I’m blessed with a great job, home, and plenty to eat. I’d love it if you took that money and donated it to help feed struggling folks in your community.

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