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How can I disable Dropbox for individual users on a Windows PC?

I have a PC (Windows 11) with accounts for multiple users, i.e. a family PC. I am using dropbox, and it works well. However, other users are not using dropbox. These other users experience an annoying dropbox feature after every Windows login: A dropbox panel pops up and invites them to create a dropbox account.

I think these users should be able to say "No thanks, and never ask again". But I haven't found a way to stop the panel from popping up again and again. Not having a dropbox account, these users have no access to dropbox settings and preferences.

Is there a way to stop this invitation panel? Not a serious problem, but an annoying feature ..

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Rich

@Ueli wrote:
When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC.

I didn't realize it disabled that for all users.

Disable it for all users, then create your own shortcut for Dropbox and place it in the Startup folder within your own user profile.

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Rich

@Ueli wrote:
Not having a dropbox account, these users have no access to dropbox settings and preferences.

Have each of them use the Startup Apps section in Windows to turn off Dropbox.

Ueli

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work for me. It's an "all or nothing" situation.

When one of the non-dropbox-users wants to turn off dropbox in the startup list, Windows asks for the admin password. When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC. However, I want to use dropbox just for myself, so I don't want it turned off.

Rich

@Ueli wrote:
When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC.

I didn't realize it disabled that for all users.

Disable it for all users, then create your own shortcut for Dropbox and place it in the Startup folder within your own user profile.

JpFortran

Hi there,

I had to reset to factory my win10 pc. Once done, I've customized my profile (the one and only user by then) including installing and connecting to my dbox account.
After that I added another user to pc, and when loggin-in this new user, dbox start asking to log-in (or create a new account) every single time this new user logs in. As this 2nd user I went to startup apps and turned dbox off.. just to realize later dbox went off globally (means the 1st user also stop running dbox at its log-in) .. seems dbox was globally installed during 1st user customization.
The point is, being logged as 2nd user, I cannot find sort of option 'stop asking for log-in to this user' or such as .. there's no dbox icon on status bar to right-click on, coz -obviously- this user doesn't logs in.
So, 'the' question: is there anyway to tell dbox stop asking for log-in to this 2nd user (in fact there's a 3rd user as well, in wich I'm affraid to log in) .. or should I uninstall the whole dbox and re-install it on the 1st user profile ~ hoping it will ask then for 'global or single-user' installation?
Thanks in advance

Rich

@JpFortran wrote:
... is there anyway to tell dbox stop asking for log-in to this 2nd user ...

No. See my response above.

JpFortran

thanks @Rich . Gonna give it a try. Later I'll comment how it was.

Peter L

I know this might be a silly question, but how does one create ones "own" shortcut?

Do you: click Start, then scroll down list of all programs, left-click+drag Dropbox icon onto user's Desktop? Then what? Where is the Startup Folder in Windows 10?

I think I found the user's Startup folder:

c:\Users\MyUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\

Steps to solve this:

I disabled Dropbox (for all users) in Task Manager / Startup (right-click, disable).
I clicked Start, then scrolled down the list of all programs, left-click+drag the Dropbox icon onto my Desktop.
Copied t he Dropbox shortcut to c:\Users\MyUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\

After a quick test (I switched to another user), it seems to work! 😊

TheBugReporter

(I would have added this comment here, but that thread is locked.)

Note that the default setting within Dropbox that starts Dropbox on startup starts Dropbox on any user's startup. If you have more than one account on your machine, even if the other one is just a separate Administrator account★, all of them will attempt to start Dropbox on logon, regardless of who it is, regardless of whether the person owning the Windows account has a Dropbox account or not, and regardless of whether the current Windows account belongs to a real person or not.

★ BTW, it's a smart precaution to activate the Administrator account and remove the Administrator privileges from your normal account. This shouldn't get in the way of your normal use of the computer - unless your normal use involves installing and removing programs repeatedly every day. ☺

Rich

@TheBugReporter wrote:
Note that the default setting within Dropbox that starts Dropbox on startup starts Dropbox on any user's startup.

I've merged your post into this thread. Refer to my response at the top of this thread.

Rick C.21

Easy way in this environment is to use task mangler and disable DropBox in Startup. That-away, other users are not affected. (The less users have to think about something, the better)