Add or Remove Google Drive from Navigation Pane in Windows 10

Brink · 07 Mar 2018

MikeAudia said:

Hello, I've been trying to follow this long and winding road to Google Drive Happiness and I'm not having any luck.

I have a Win10 laptop with a fresh install of Google Back-up and Sync all to the default folders. I ran the .BAT file and I have "Google Drive" in my Windows File Explorer. When I try to access it it told me that "Google Drive could not be found it may be deleted or moved.." I rebooted, got the same error. So I looked at the message and from what I can tell it was looking in the User folder for a "Google Drive" folder that was not there. So I created that folder and the error goes away but now all I do it open that empty folder and never do get to the items in the real Google Drive.

Do I need to Sync the Google Drive items to the local machine so I get an actual Google Drive folder not a fake one that I just created? I'd like to leave them all up in the magical cloud because I don't have much disk space. Any wisdom that can be shared would be greatly appreciated.

Hello Mike, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

Did you move your user profile folder to another location than default?

As a test, how does Option 2 work for you?

MikeAudia · 07 Mar 2018

My user folder is in C:\users\administrator
My Fake Google Folder is C:\user\administrator\Google Drive

By option two do you mean the Registry File? I ran that as well and it said it was successful but I get the same result, an empty folder.

So Syncing the files to the local machine is not needed?

Brink · 07 Mar 2018

You will need to have "Backup and Sync" running and syncing to your computer. This is what the Google Drive folder uses.

MikeAudia · 07 Mar 2018

Brink said:

You will need to have "Backup and Sync" running and syncing to your computer. This is what the Google Drive folder uses.

Ok that's what I thought so it just wont give me a view of what Google Drive contains it needs to be on my local machine and then will sync with the cloud and other devices as I add and remove items from that folder. Thanks for saving me from hitting my head on the wall any further.

Brink · 07 Mar 2018

You're most welcome. :)

RobMahn · 07 Mar 2018

I found an error where I was too zealous in cleaning up old keys and inadvertently deleted CLSID {81539FE6-33C7-4CE7-90C7-1C7B8F2F2D41} original values.

I did not detect symptoms of this deletion, so I don't know the impact. These are keys installed by Google Backup and Sync.

This update will restore the original values if they are missing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uje...ew?usp=sharing

If you have run any previous versions of the .bat file, please run this again and re-run the add or delete to invoke the fix.

The deleted keys were:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{81539FE6-33C7-4CE7-90C7-1C7B8F2F2D41}
(Default) REG_SZ Google Drive Shell extension

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{81539FE6-33C7-4CE7-90C7-1C7B8F2F2D41}\InProcServer32
(Default) REG_SZ C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Drive\googledrivesync64.dll
ThreadingModel REG_SZ Apartment

Brink · 08 Mar 2018

Thank you Rob. The .bat file in Option 1 has been updated for this one. :)

RobMahn · 25 Mar 2018

I noticed things were not working and discovered that in a recent update, Google moved the 64-bit version to %ProgramFiles% and renamed the 32 bit dll to googledrivesync32.dll. These were appropriate changes, but broke the batch file.

I have updated the batch file to accommodate these changes and also fix a problem with interrogation the desktop.ini file when the path changed to use the short 8.3 path name.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OFk...ew?usp=sharing

Brink · 25 Mar 2018

Hello Rob, :)

I'm not seeing and sync overlay icons with the new version of Backup and Sync.

RobMahn · 25 Mar 2018

I was seeing that too. I was testing and uninstalled, then re-installed. The sync overlays worked then. You might try exiting Backup and Sync ... right click the cloud, go to the hamburger menu, and exit. Then restart it from the Windows apps menu. Or, just reboot.