Killing Onedrive for good!

Introduction

While working my tech job recently, I stumbled across a significant challenge: OneDrive. You see, I needed an automated method for thoroughly uninstalling OneDrive without having to do it manually, I needed to Integrating this process into my computer setup script.

During my research, I discovered a script by TERRAOperative, that can be found here. While the script seemed capable at first glance, it turned out to be somewhat outdated and didn't quite get the job done. Perhaps Microsoft had become smarter at stopping these efforts. It appeared that merely deleting the OneDrive folder wasn't enough for a clean uninstall.

So I dug further and found that invoking the command OneDriveSetup.exe /Uninstall would get OneDrive to Uninstall itself resulting in a clean uninstallation. The catch was that OneDriveSetup.exe was located within a folder named after the OneDrive version, indicated by a string of numbers. This ment that there was no absolute path to OneDriveSetup.exe this posed a challenge, as each computer's path could be different.

For instance, the path might look like this:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft OneDrive\23.127.0618.0001\OneDriveSetup.exe

with the string of numbers being totally diffrent on a seprate machine

To fix this, I got to work making a script, the plan of action was simple:

1. Test multiple paths to locate the Microsoft OneDrive installation.
2. Identify folders containing version numbers from these paths.
3. Invoke the /Uninstall command using these paths.
4. Clean up registry keys and other leftovers.

So lets get Cracking!

Firstly, we need to close OneDrive to make folder edits:

TASKKILL /F /IM OneDrive.exe

Next, we'll remove unnecessary registry entries for a clean installation. Credit goes to TERRAOperative for this step:

 REG Delete "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}" /f
 REG Delete "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}" /f
 REG ADD "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}" /v System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree /d "0" /t REG_DWORD /f

Now, let's store the paths to be checked in an array for future reference and then verify their existence:

 $p = 'Program Files'
 $o = 'Microsoft OneDrive'
    $pathsToCheck = @(
        "C:\Users\$env:username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\",
        "C:\${p}\${o}\"
    )

    foreach ($path in $pathsToCheck) {
        $resolvedPath = [System.IO.Path]::GetFullPath($path)
        if (Test-Path -Path $resolvedPath) {
            $folders = Get-ChildItem -Path $resolvedPath -Directory

        }
        else {
            Write-Host "OneDrive path '$resolvedPath' not found."
        }
    }

You might wondering why one of the paths is defined in such a complicated manner $p = 'Program Files' $o = 'Microsoft OneDrive' "C:\${p}\${o}\". the reason: because simply quoting the file path doesn't work due to Windows not accounting for spaces. This somewhat janky fix, fixes that issue.

Back to the script, let's search the given paths for folders with version numbers using the "^\d" function:

 foreach ($folder in $folders) {
    if ($folder.Name -match "^\d") {
       
    }
 }

Now, let's construct the path, add OneDriveSetup.exe, and invoke the command:

 $command = Join-Path -Path $resolvedPath -ChildPath "${folder}\OneDriveSetup.exe"
 $arg = "/Uninstall"
 Start-Process -FilePath $command -ArgumentList $arg -Wait

And there you have it! A future-proof solution that adapts to any OneDrive version change. Additionally any new file/installation paths can easily be incorporated into the array.

For the refined script and more minor adjustments, you can find it here. If you find this script helpful, please consider starring the repository, it would mean alot!