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Installing Microsoft 365 WITHOUT OneDrive

Gilles Plante 0 Reputation points
2025-08-10T19:30:15.6933333+00:00

Hello all,

my question is quite simple "How can one install Microsoft 365 WITHOUT getting OneDrive ?". OneDrive is forced and I don't like that.

Preparing a new computer

I bought a new computer beccause the old one was not able to run Windows 11. I got my new computer which came with Winows 11 Pro, booted it, and tried to get away with a Microsoft Account but no way aronud. I then typed my account credentials, answered the questions and stated that I didn't want to synchronyse with my old computer - configure as a new PC.

The computer rebooted a few times. When finished I saw that on the Desktop all the icons from my old computer were there even thoung I stated configure as a new PC. On top of that, Word, Excel etc. were installed, as well as OeDrive I don't want. The installer figured by itself from my Microsoft account that I have a Microsoft 365 Family account and installed components without asking which one I wanted to install. I was not happy at all. I found instructions on how to remove OneDrive and got rid of it.

Install Windowa 11 from a bootable USB key

I created a bootable USB key containing a Windows 11 Pro image. I unplugged the thumb drive, rebooted the PC, plugged in the thumb drive, and launched setup.exe from the thumb drive. Again, I answered all the questions asked to configure as a new PC, was asked which computer I wished to synchronize from; my old computer was listed. Because I didn't trust the installer, I shut down my old computer and finished the installation. After a few reboots, the only icon on the desktop was the garbage can.

I went to account.microsoft.com/services, logged into my account, and downloaded an image for the Microsoft 365 installer. I repeat: downloaded.

Once the download was complete, I opened File Explorer, looked around, and found out that under C:\users<myAccount>\ that a OneDrive directory was added with a few subdirectories. Most of them were empty, except for "Screen captures" which contains all the screen captures made with the included program on Windows 11.

Conclusion: simply downloading the Microsoft 365 Image made a few changes to the computer. I didn't have a look at the Registry.

Now, if I mount the image, I guess I can do that, to install Word, Excel, etc., will I again get OneDrive installed, even though I don't want to install it. Sorry, but I can't trust the Microsoft 365 installation anymore.

Questions:

  1. How can I install Microsoft 365 Components of my choice without having OneDrive reappear?
  2. How can I get rid of OneDrive once and for all ?
  3. How can I have Microsoft remove from its servers all the files previously saved under OneDrive, which are my property and not Microsoft's?
  4. When will Microsoft stop forcing installation of OneDrive on customer's computers? Thank you all.
Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows
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  1. Craig Long 13,955 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-08-11T02:35:36.4166667+00:00

    Hi, and welcome to Microsoft Q&A.

    You really can't get rid of OneDrive permanently. However, you can stop the syncing by navigating to the OneDrive Settings > "Sync and Backup" tab > "Manage Backup" and toggling OFF the sync for all your folders. Then you can remove your files from the OneDrive folder located at C:\Users\YourUsername\OneDrive.

    I suggest avoiding OneDrive altogether by placing files only in folders that cannot sync to OneDrive. Only the Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders can sync.

    This is a good video on how to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yXgyrsqraE

    You can always go to onedrive.com and download or delete your files from there.

    Let me know if that works for you.

    Craig

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  2. Gilles Plante 0 Reputation points
    2025-08-11T19:41:55.9933333+00:00

    Hello Craig,Thanks for you answer. That confirms Microsoft forces Onedrive against the will of users.

    Only the Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders can sync.

    Avoiding those directories to store documents has always been my way of doing things, but manu applications suggest these directories when creating new files and it's easy to forget them and trigger OneDrive from coming back.

    Do you know a away to whipe out files saved on Microsoft servers for OneDrive for good, withoud using OneDrive for that purpose ?

    Thanks again,

    Gilles Plante

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  3. Craig Long 13,955 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-08-11T20:20:46.9966667+00:00

    No, I don't know of a way to wipe your files from OneDrive without signing into OneDrive. There is a way to disable OneDrive on Windows, but when you install updates, OneDrive will likely return.

    See this way to disable OneDrive. Be sure to expand the comments: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5517279/are-these-the-correct-and-accurate-steps-to-disabl

  4. Stefan Blom 308.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2025-08-12T07:37:12.82+00:00

    To stop every form of synchronizing between OneDrive and your PC, see the "Unlink OneDrive from your computer" section in the article at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0 .

    See the screen shot below which is from the article.

    User's image

    P.S. As Craig already pointed out, you can't get rid of the OneDrive app completely from Windows. OneDrive is integrated with the OS. You can make it a lot less intrusive, though.

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