Known Issue: OneDrive Fails to Launch on Windows PC

Summary

OneDrive does not start on Windows 10/11 dues to incorrect registry and GPO settings on the device.

Body

On some computers, OneDrive will not load once launched from the Start menu, even after reinstalling the software. Upon the inspection of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive registry key, you will notice that DisableFileSyncNGSC is set to "1".

Most likely, the affected computer was at one point used as a shared workstation and had shared PC mode enabled on it by Intune via a device configuration profile in Endpoint Manager. Once a shared PC mode is enabled on a PC, OneDrive is disabled automatically (see: Shared PC technical reference). We enable shared PC mode (which is a registry setting) on computers used in computer labs and classrooms and those added to TLC - Devices - Shared Desktops | Laptops groups via assigned device configuration profiles. If one of these computers gets re-purposed to a user as a primary-user workstation without resetting Windows, OneDrive will still be disabled on it.

To address this issue without resorting to resetting Windows, check and update the following settings:

Windows Registry

  1. Press (Windows key) + R to open the Run box.
  2. Type regedit and click OK.
  3. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedPC. If SharedPCMode is set to "1", you have to change it to "0".
  4. 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)

Group Policy Settings

  1. Press (Windows key) + R to open the Run box.
  2. Type gpedit.msc and click OK.
  3. 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".
  4. Run gpupdate /force from a command line to refresh the group policies.

Reboot the computer and launch OneDrive which should now start.

Additional Resources

Details

Details

Article ID: 84186
Created
Thu 8/1/19 10:07 AM
Modified
Fri 3/3/23 1:25 PM