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OneDrive.exe and Grove.exe

Anonymous
2016-06-24T00:16:24+00:00

I have windows 10 and Office 356 (2016) installed.  I also have (the newest) OneDrive installed that allows the addition of a business account, so it points to my OneDrive personal account as well as my one drive business account.  All was working just fine until Office did an auto update today and now I seem to have two One Drive for Business versions running at the same time.  In the picture below you can see my system tray:

The white cloud is OneDrive Personal, the middle blue cloud is the OneDrive for Business connected through OneDrive and the left blue cloud is the Stand-Alone OneDrive (I guess, is that what we call it).  Oddly, the stand-alone version is not synced while the connected version is synced.

Looking at Task manager I can see three related programs (instances) running:

You can see two instances of OneDrive (as one might expect) and one instance of Groove.  I have confirmed that Groove is the blue cloud on the left and the other two clouds belong to OneDrive.

I also have extra entries in Explorer:

So my questions are these: 

1.  Should I have Groove.exe running with OneDrive.exe (i.e. do I need it for some reason to work with office).

2.  Why in the heck would one be in sync and the other not (and the Groove version has been stuck not in sync for 5 files for hours, through several reboots, but all files have a green check)

3.  I know I can unlink my business account from OneDrive, so then I would not have three versions, but the Groove version seems to really suck compared to the OneDrive Version.

4.  How can I remove Groove (there is no item Programs and Features to remove it).

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-24T08:41:42+00:00

    Hi Tefal,

    Usually Groove.exe is a OneDrive for Business client, which can sync files in SharePoint Online libraries. OneDrive.exe is the Next Generation Sync Client, which can only sync files in OneDrive personal site.

    If you only need sync files from OneDrive site, to get a better  experience, we suggest you use the Next Generation Sync Client. To install Office without OneDrive for Business, you will need to configure the xml file. Please refer to the section "Exclude certain programs when you deploy Office 365 ProPlus" in this article: https://technet.microsoft.com/EN-US/library/dn745895.aspx.

    If you still need sync files form SharePoint Online libraries, we suggest you keep the OneDrive for Business client on your PC. Here are my replies to your questions:

    1.  Should I have Groove.exe running with OneDrive.exe (i.e. do I need it for some reason to work with office).

    It is feasible to install Groove.exe together with OneDrive.exe on the same computer.

    2.  Why in the heck would one be in sync and the other not ? (and the Groove version has been stuck not in sync for 5 files for hours, through several reboots, but all files have a green check)

    If you have synced a library to the local PC successfully, any changes in the library  will sync to your PC automatically.  So if you have made changes in the library, the client will be in sync. If not, it won’t . Besides, since all files have a green check, it shows all files are synced to your PC successfully.

    3.  I know I can unlink my business account from OneDrive, so then I would not have three versions, but the Groove version seems to really suck compared to the OneDrive Version.

    For OneDrive for Business issues, you can try resolving them referring to this article: Fix OneDrive for Business sync problems.

    4.  How can I remove Groove (there is no item Programs and Features to remove it)?

    It seems that your OneDrive for Business is installed within Office. To install Office without OneDrive for Business, you can refer to the article above.

    Regards,

    Yoga

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-27T07:46:52+00:00

    Hi Tefal,

    Have my replies answered your questions? Do you need further help?

    Regards,

    Yoga

    1 person found this answer helpful.
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