Disable Dropbox and Google Drive

I have two users on my laptop, they are both me, one when I'm home, my laptop is connected to a 22" monitor and I use it like a desktop computer. My other user is when I travel, so that has very few apps on the desktop and in the taskbar. When I'm on wifi in a hotel I don't want my Dropbox or Google Drive to sync, I know I can turn them off manually, but I 'd like to have them off when I or my wife logs in. Is that possible?

Your code worked, sort of, it worked with an error message:

Code:

PS C:\Users\rboppy> Get-NetAdapter -Name Ethernet | Format-List -Property "MediaConnectionState"

MediaConnectionState : Disconnected

MediaConnectionState : The term 'MediaConnectionState' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, scriptfile, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correctand try again.At line:3 char:1+ MediaConnectionState : Connected+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (MediaConnectionState:String) [], CommandNotFoundException

But not being adept at Powershell I don't know how to "kill" Dropbox and Google Drive.

Your setup sounds unnecessarily complicated. Why not just stop them from running at boot, but put shortcuts for each on the desktop for when you need them?

Or, just let them run and simplify your setup with just one user. Dropbox files are encrypted.
How Dropbox keeps your files secure – Dropbox Help

I like that idea! Google Drive has a setting that allows not starting on startup, I can the run the googledrivesync.exe to get it up and running.

I can disable Dropbox from the Taskmanager-Startup tab, but don't see a way to get it running again without restarting the computer, which I guess is no big deal.

rboppy said:

I have two users on my laptop, they are both me, one when I'm home, my laptop is connected to a 22" monitor and I use it like a desktop computer. My other user is when I travel, so that has very few apps on the desktop and in the taskbar. When I'm on wifi in a hotel I don't want my Dropbox or Google Drive to sync, I know I can turn them off manually, but I 'd like to have them off when I or my wife logs in. Is that possible?

This may help, possibly.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/autoruns

Autoruns lets you disable apps, services etc. which run at startup, and you can then run them when you need them.

Thanks Eddie Doc, exactly what I need.

rboppy said:

Thanks Eddie Doc, exactly what I need.

Have you used it yet?

Oh yeah, it's found items in the registry that I deleted a long time ago (...file not found). Need to run as administrator to delete items.

rboppy said:

Oh yeah, it's found items in the registry that I deleted a long time ago (...file not found). Need to run as administrator to delete items.

I've found that when I install new software, it often sets itself to run on startup - not only that, but it sets other components to run at startup also, so it's worth checking all categories in autoruns and disabling those you don't need to run automatically.
Let us know how it works for Drive and Dropbox.