OneDrive Problems and Windows 10 Creator Update

Another departure from my normal blog posts (which are usually developer-related about .NET, C# and database stuff). The title of this post is a bit misleading ... there is probably absolutely nothing wrong with the Creator Update and OneDrive, but I panicked and over-reacted. Imagine that!

First, just in case you're lazy and don't want to bother reading my lovely narrative below ...

TL;DR 

How to get your OneDrive "re-set" if things get screwed up:

1. Exit OneDrive from the right-click options.
2. Go to the C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\settings. Make a copy of the settings folder somewhere, just in case it gets screwed up.
3. Delete everything in the folder (so, you still want the settings folder, but it should be empty).
4. Start OneDrive back up again in one of two ways:
   • Search for OneDrive in the Start Menu and run it, which I didn't do.
   • Go to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\Update and run the OneDriveSetup.exe. This is what I did (since it was the first thing suggested to me). I'm guessing that running OneDrive.exe would probably run the OneDriveSetup.exe anyway, since it knows that there's nothing in the settings folder!
5. Once OneDrive has started:
   
   • It will ask you for your OneDrive login credentials.
   • It will ask you where your local OneDrive folder is (don't worry, it didn't lose it or wipe it out or anything). None of your files get lost.
   • Then, you get to the part where you specify the folders to sync.
   • And everything works fine after that!

OK, now that we got *that* out of the way, here's what happened to cause this whole mess:

I had updated (unknowingly) to the Creator Update over the weekend. It's a totally misleading description for the update, because it says "Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KBxxxxxxx)".  The Creator Update is version 1703, so you would *think* that the description would be something like "Update for Windows 10 to Version 1703" ... but Noooo.   I don't remember the KB number for that particular update (I subsequently got another Update today, Monday, that is apparently also the Creator Update, which I have not yet applied ... it's KB4033637, but good luck finding anything about it).

The Update totally got my One Drive all confused (or so I thought), and rather than try and figure out how to fix it, I panicked and just went back to my previous Windows version. You can easily do that by going to Settings | Update and Security | Recovery and then choose Get Started under the heading "Go back to an earlier build" (be careful with this one, though ... because if it's not done soon after the update, any changes to your system subsequent to that will be lost when it reverts to the earlier build). Everything looked fine, so I just went on about my business (well, messing around with my computer on a Saturday isn’t quite business).

Later in the day, I got an email from OneDrive about a lot of files in my Recycle Bin.  I went to OneDrive online and saw that at least 800 files had been plopped in the online Recycle Bin!!! These are photos (I take a lot of pictures, I'm a photography hobbyist).  Well, I sure knew that it had happened because of the hijinks of the Creator Update and so, silly me, I moved them out of the Recycle Bin and back where they belonged. And then it was time for dinner and movie.

Several hours later, I checked it before I went to bed and OneDrive was still downloading files. I went to look at the files locally and saw that I was getting dangerously low on C disk drive space. What happened?!?  It was downloading *EVERYTHING*!!!!!!  And I had *NOT* had it set up that way previously. Under my Photography folder, of the almost 6000 files, in 38 folders, I had OneDrive set up to only sync this year’s photos (less than 800 files). I immediately Paused the Sync and went to bed. Deal with it in the morning …

So now it's Sunday morning ... I figured that I could just go to the Settings and put things back the way they were (only syncing the current year's photo folders).  Nope!!  I couldn’t access Settings while Syncing was paused. OK, let’s try again.  Un-paused the Sync, went to the Settings and tried to uncheck one lousy folder … but the OK button stubbornly remained disabled. I made sure that I did this on one of the folders that had already synced overnight, just in case that was the problem. It still didn’t work. OK, let's go to File Explorer and access the Settings via right-clicks. But, still no joy ... there were absolutely *NO* OneDrive related *anything* in File Explorer (such as “View on OneDrive.com”, etc. … nothing!!).

I finally got tired of Googling for an answer and asked around on a few MVP-related resources. I almost instantly got a reply from one of my fellow MVPs, Mike Halsey (@MikeHalsey on Twitter … or Google him if you're interested, you'll get a lot of hits). He suggested I try the following steps and *it worked*!!! And, I'll repeat it again, even though it's at the top of the post, I added to it just a bit:

1. Exit OneDrive from the right-click options.
2. Go to the C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\settings. Make a copy of the settings folder somewhere, just in case it gets screwed up.
3. Delete everything in the folder (so, you still want the settings folder, but it should be empty).
4. Start OneDrive back up again in one of two ways:
   • Search for OneDrive in the Start Menu and run it, which I didn't do.
   • Go to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\Update and run the OneDriveSetup.exe. This is what I did (since Mike suggested that first). I'm guessing that running OneDrive.exe would probably run the OneDriveSetup.exe anyway, since it knows that there's nothing in the settings folder!
5. Once OneDrive has started:
   
   • It will ask you for your OneDrive login credentials.
   • It will ask you where your local OneDrive folder is (don't worry, it didn't lose it or wipe it out or anything). None of your files get lost. This is the part that freaked me out when the Creator Update started asking me this right off the bat. I really thought that all was lost and, like I said, I panicked. Silly me.
   • Then, you get to the part where you specify the folders to sync.
   • And everything works fine after that!

Pretty easy, although it was a bit nerve-wracking. ;0)  Thanks, Mike!!

I will probably go ahead and try the Creator Update again, because I *really* want the OneDrive Placeholders, like we had back in Windows 8.1. I think the weird stuff I was seeing really wasn't a problem. Although, I won't swear to that!