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Is there a way to silently remove the Dropbox app?

Hello, I was looking for a way to silently remove dropbox. I need to do this for a company. I am trying to use DropboxUninstaller.exe /s in SCCM but it's not working. It pops up a box asking if you want to uninstall. I tried looking through the forms but it seems this question has been totally ignored by Dropbox every time it is asked. They really don't like to support anything that would be useful admin wise. In fact pretty much everything I look for on here goes ignored. I am sure this will too but worth a shot. Maybe years later they will have figured out how to click the reply button. For reference, this was posted in 2015 and has been ignored by Dropbox staff since https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Installation-and-desktop-app/Silent-Uninstall-of-Dropbox-3-8-5/td-p/20427 Idk how they get customers when their support does not exist. I find nothing but ignored posts whenever I search for anything here.

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Kiadose

Here is a link to the script as Jay suggested uploaded to my TechNet account. If anyone wants to use this just save it as a batch (.bat) file and it can be silently run in SCCM or anything like it. If you want to run it outside of SCCM you will need to add admin rights to the script or it might not work. The script is notated with REM as to what it is doing. I give no guarentees with this script but it removed it from my users systems with no problem.

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Dropbox-Removal-via-SCCM-063fdd08#content

Hope this helps if it does click the like button.

If you are wondering how I did this so you may apply the same idea to other things in the future I used Revo Uninstaller, ran that for Dropbox where it launched the uninstall I just cancelled then had it scan the remaining registry and folder entries and exported that. I then wrote command for every entry left over in order to achive what you see in that link but first starting out by killing the dropbox process in Task Manager so the folders wouldn't get locked down by users using it and finished it by writing in something to remove desktop icons and start menu pins.

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Jay

Hi again, I don’t feel there’s a need to repeat your previous statement that no one replies to comments, especially since the threads you mentioned are 3 years old and out of date, and that I immediately replied to your other post yesterday.

Regarding your query, I’m not aware of any silent uninstall option, so I’ll forward the suggestion to our dev team for their consideration in future.

Kiadose

I only repeat myself becuase 5/5 searches I have done have yielded year old questions with zero response or resolution. That is a 100% failure to me. Obviously you've gotten better at responding but it is frustrating. 3 of the issues I solved myself and I think I might have something for this so I am trying to improve where ever I find something I just want to stop hitting dead ends with everything that has to do with Dropbox.

Anyway here is a batch file I am playing with. It will look at every users app folder and run the unintsall if the dropbox folder is found it assumes a standard install of course. I will post something back if I get this working. Since it is batch running in SCCM it should be able to be made silent too so it might solve an unanswered question at least.

Batch - Loop through folders and run command

@echo off
    setlocal enableextensions

    for /F "tokens=2,*" %%a in ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList" /v ProfileImagePath /s ^| find "REG_EXPAND_SZ" ^| findstr /v /i "\\windows\\ \\system32\\"') do (
        call :doUninstall "%%b"
    )

    endlocal
    exit /b

:doUninstall
    set "_uninstaller=%~1\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\bin\DropboxUninstaller.exe"
    if not exist "%_uninstaller%" goto :EOF
    start "" /wait "%_uninstaller%" /S
    goto :EOF

Kiadose

I came up with a solution. I wrote a 588 line batch file but when I try to upload it I get an unknown error has occurred. Jay can I send it to you and have you upload it here?

Jay, or any other admin on this site. When you have a chance please help me out with the upload issue so I can post this script in one piece and it will be easier for your customers and others to use.

Jay

We can’t upload specific files to the forum, only images. For a long forum post like that it most likely wouldn’t work even for me.

If you upload the file to your Dropbox account and create a shared link, you can post the link here for others to use.

Kiadose

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Dropbox-Removal-via-SCCM-063fdd08#content

Hope this helps if it does click the like button.

YellowPoppy

If Dropbox is an enterprise level solution, there should be a command line uninstall option. This doesn't seem like a long term solution. Has Dropbox tested this? I also want to add the uninstall feature in SCCM. Are the dropbox engineers working on the command line silent uninstall feature for the next release?

I tried the script and it did not completely uninstall Dropbox. It may be very specific to that environment. I don't have the tfadmin user. It's not an enterprise level solution.

Kiadose

I have no idea if they are working on it. I would say probably not. Most people you ask who work in Enterprise will tell you Dropbox is not ready for Enterprise but people will still pick it up. Like I said above.

You made a good catch with those user files. I actually did not notice that. It would have to be scripted to go through each user looking for those file which can be done with more scripting.

I will have to update it to be freindly for all users then repost. Thanks for the catch.

Kiadose

Alright I edited the script. I actually just cut out the part with the user in it. All that was stored there were install and log files. Like I said before it's a messy uninstall but it will remove the application and prevent it from running any processes. It is the closest thing to an enterprise removal they have now.

Kiadose

Just an update I was able to adjust the script to make this a clean removal all Items will now be removed with this.

dands_andy

I just used:

%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Dropbox\Client\DropboxUninstaller.exe

And that worked fine for InTune and I'm sure it would work for SCCM