I think this is such a terrible nuisance: One Drive for Business keeps ruining my Windows Explorer icon overlays!

I am using two Explorer extensions that needs their own icon overlays in the normal Windows File Explorer.

Now, I am not using One Drive Pro, but it comes with Office 2013 and Sharepoint 2013, so I guess I cannot get rid of it easily.

What happens is that OneDrive Pro inserts its own icon overlay identifiers into the Registry key and then "hi-jacks" the table of icon overlays. Windows Explorer only supports 15 different overlay icons, so in my case, I would like to give 9 to TortoiseSVN extension to show the correct file version control status of my source code and then the rest to Dropbox to show the correct status of syncing into Dropbox.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers is the Registry key I am talking about.

I could actually also want more icons so I could set up icons for GDrive status, and if I want to, I would like to use another set of overlay icons for SugarSync. But there is no room on my computer's registry  for GDrive icon overlays, for SugarSync icon overlays or indeed for Sky Drive Pro icon overlays, but Sky Drive Pro is such an intrusive program that it  always will check if its icons are the first ones in the icon overlay list in the Registry, and if not, insert them at the top of the list!

The entries I do not want are these:

• SkyDrivePro1 (ErrorConflict)
• SkyDrivePro2 (SyncInProgress) and
• SkyDrivePro3 (InSync)

These have a special non-printable character in their name, in order to come before any entries I have there already! So it is extra cunning on top of its intrusiveness!

I would call this a bug, but I am sure Microsoft calls this a feature.

I would like to know: can I somehow protect my existing Registry entries from being overwritten by One Drive for Business?

• Moved by Wendy DZMicrosoft contingent staff 22 hours 2 minutes ago office 2013

Hi ,

Since this issue is related to Office 2013, I will move this thread to Office 2013 forum. Sometime delay might be expected from the job transferring. Your patience is greatly appreciated. 

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best Regards,
Wendy

Hi,

I think it's hard to change how OneDrive for Business works on the Registry entries on our level, but as mentioned you are not using OneDrive for Business, have you tried to remove OneDrive from Control Panel -> Programs and Features? Please disable it to check if the problem persists.

Melon Chen

Forum Support