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Forum Discussion

Sneijder's avatar
Sneijder
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Dropbox Link stays in windows explorer after uninstall

I uninstalled Dropbox, but the Explorer still has the dropbox link. Tried uninstalling via Programs and Features and via the uninstaller. Machine has been rebootet. How can I get rid of it?  
desktop
Uninstall
  • Sneijder's avatar
    Sneijder
    7 years ago

    Unfortunately that won't help. I already did delete the folder and reboot my machine. The link stayed.

     

    My solution was to crawl the registry for {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A} and set System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree  to 0 in every instance. If I remember correctly there were 3 entries with ID. After a reboot the Icon is now gone.

Lusil's avatar
Lusil
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
 
Initially, thanks for the proactive screenshot, that really does help in understanding what you’re referring to. Note that what you’re seeing is the folder that’s left behind after an uninstall procedure, because when you uninstall the Dropbox desktop app, your files don’t get deleted. 
 
This folder then contains all the files and folders that were syncing up until that point. In other words, it’s just like any other folder on your computer now and it’s not syncing. If you want to remove it, you can go ahead and delete it.
 
Hope this helped. Let me know if you have any more questions! :grin:
Sneijder's avatar
Sneijder
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Unfortunately that won't help. I already did delete the folder and reboot my machine. The link stayed.

 

My solution was to crawl the registry for {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A} and set System.IsPinnedToNamespaceTree  to 0 in every instance. If I remember correctly there were 3 entries with ID. After a reboot the Icon is now gone.

  • Lusil's avatar
    Lusil
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    7 years ago
    Hey again Sneijder, thanks for your prompt reply! Although changing the registry isn’t something we’d recommend, I’m glad to hear you were able to resolve your concern in the end.
     
    If you have any other questions in the future, don’t hesitate to get back to us. In the mean time, have a wonderful day ahead! :laughing:
  • Issam997's avatar
    Issam997
    New member | Level 2
    6 years ago

    Awsome! For me I had to update in these 4 places:

    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A}]

    Doesn't seem there is another way other than updating the registry though!

  • anarfox's avatar
    anarfox
    Helpful | Level 6
    6 years ago

    I had the same issue and went through the registry looking for {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1A} but it didn't help. Turns out there's another key to look for: {E31EA727-12ED-4702-820C-4B6445F28E1B}.

    I won't list all the places I found it on beacuse it was litered all over the registry (like 20+ locations), but fixing this key as well resolved the issue for me.

    Dropbox, you really need to look over your uinstaller. Littering the registry with keys and leaving them there during an uninstall isn't good practie. Not to mention all the junk files I had to manually delete from all the appdata folders.

    • Floffy's avatar
      Floffy
      New member | Level 2
      6 years ago

      It shouldn't be difficult for Dropbox to add some options so that we can choose which uninstall to perform:

      • Repair Dropbox (Reinstall and fix common issues)
      • Full uninstall (Delete everything related to the application itsef)
      • Delete the Dropbox folder ?

      3 simple options which can definitely make everyone happy!

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