Patch lady – Defender and one drive

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Patch Lady here – while I do appreciate Microsoft’s insistence to ensure we have multiple ways to back up our data, it does get a bit annoying when ev
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Elly, teuhasn, PhotM, RetiredGeek, lmacri, woody

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Sounds like you achieved a good result, but I thought I’d mention that it is actually possible to completely remove the OneDrive system integration if you don’t want cloud stuff. It involves using OneDriveSetup.exe (supplied with the system) with the /uninstall switch, and tweaking some registry settings to prevent it from showing in Explorer. There are sites online with the specifics.

I’ve removed OneDrive this way so far with all of the Windows 10 releases. The uninstallation leaves the system otherwise fully functional and serviceable. I’ve been able to access online OneDrive data the few times I’ve needed to via a web browser.

There are also local group policy entries that can be used to disable OneDrive under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive…

-Noel

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teuhasn, columbia2011

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Unfortunately, Defender is configured for the low-hanging fruit of PC security. It would be nice of the rest of us had a way to set Defender ignore specific warnings.

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Removing OneDriveSetup from HKCU Run hive won’t help because the key will be re-created on next reboot. However, disabling OneDriveSetup via Task Manager/Startup works to silence the borg.

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teuhasn

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1709 here. One of the first things I did when I got this computer last December was to remove OneDrive.  It comes back in 1803?

I just did the Cumulative Update with a few strange quirks, but got them fixed.  I am delighted that my Windows Defender icon is now happy because I was able to turn OFF the various warnings by just dismissing them.  I have never been able to do that before and I always had the Virus and Threat Protection and the App and Browser Control showing the yellow triangle with the exclamation point.  This was because I had Smart Screen Protection and Cloud Protection turned off from the time I first set up this computer and that made the Windows Defender icon unhappy.

Under Virus and Threat Protection settings there is something brand new.  In red font for Cloud Protection is the statement “This setting is managed by your administrator”.  That has not been there before!  This must be why I was able just now to dismiss those warnings but never could in the past.

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Unfortunately, those warnings come back after a while and you’ll have to dismiss again (or simply ignore). Microsoft just wants everybody hooked up.

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I thought too preventing One Drive from loading at Startup would solve this. But Defender apparently knows better then I do and still warns that I have not setup One Drive as a backup.  Of course the reasonable option would be to let the user select to ignore because they use another option or choose not to backup. Its more of the nannyism going around where everything is trying to save you from yourself.

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That’s odd. Beside disabling startup mentioned above, the following group policy has been set as well — and all is fine here.

Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage.
Requirements: At least Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7
This policy setting lets you prevent apps and features from working with files on OneDrive.
If you enable this policy setting:
* Users can’t access OneDrive from the OneDrive app and file picker.
* Windows Store apps can’t access OneDrive using the WinRT API.
* OneDrive doesn’t appear in the navigation pane in File Explorer.
* OneDrive files aren’t kept in sync with the cloud.
* Users can’t automatically upload photos and videos from the camera roll folder.
If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, apps and features can work with OneDrive file storage.

For Home users: Add the DWORD key DisableFileSyncNGSC with value 1 to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\OneDrive

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teuhasn, Noel Carboni

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I don’t know if this is still the case, but a good reason not to use Onedrive before at the consumer/SMB level was that the consumer version that gets pushed by Microsoft didn’t encrypt your files at Microsoft. Encryption was just for transferring the files, but once there, no encryption. I’m not sure lots of normal users were aware of that limitation.

The fact Microsoft did only reserve this feature for paying business users and didn’t tell users clearly of this limitation is not very responsible, in my opinion, for a company that you would think would like to make people feel secure about storing their things online. If you were warned properly, you might decide to still store some information online, but maybe not everything and maybe you would use a third-party program to encrypt some of it before. With so many companies breached, I for one wouldn’t store sensitive information unencrypted online.

I also disable Onedrive everywhere using a mix of group policy, uninstall and a registry edit. And Word doesn’t try to send me there by default when I want to save a file. I don’t get nagged, but I am still on 1703 after an update on 1607 where I did this procedure. I think also I install Office 2016 click to run first before removing Onedrive since if I am not mistaken, it can reinstall it.

 

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teuhasn, Noel Carboni

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Push, push push. I do NOT want my data stored within a Microsoft service. Got a 1TB storage space with Office 365, use it only sparsely to write something mobile and continue later. Even then I do not like the whole concept, the forced integration with Windows, the regularl unwanted logouts etc.

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