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Had this problem for awhile now. Spent some time troubleshooting with Google Support and they ended up saying "it's a Microsoft issue, work with them".

The main problem is that the Google Drive desktop application does not want to launch on my Windows 7 PC. I have no problem on my work laptop running Windows 7.

I can download the application from Google themselves or ninite.com and it will add all the relevant icons to my desktop. Double clicking the Drive icon does not launch the initial configuration window, the tray icon does not appear and there is no "googledrivesync.exe" process in taskman.

I've done what a few people suggested and tried launching with -vv for extra logging, installed procmon.exe to check for unusual errors in the process and made sure that it was not blocked in Windows Firewall.

The only time I've gotten it to work was launching in a temporary Administrator account I created, though it had all the same permissions that my current account has.

Anyone else seen this before? I found a bunch of posts on Google's product community forums but there never seemed to be a confirmed resolution and most thread were 2-4 years old.

I know I'm being pretty vague so ask away if there is additional information you need.

Jacob K
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  • You said you got it to work with a temp admin account. Did you do a full reinstall with the temp admin account or did you just run the executable from the currently installed location with the new account? – Sc00T Mar 14 '17 at 20:14
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    A Microsoft problem? Give me a break. Here is something you can do to test it in one way. Begin an email and down near the paperclip there should be a Drive button so you can include attachments from Drive. That doesn't require the icon or software to work - and it will test your actual Drive. If it doesn't work then the problem would have to be at Google. – SDsolar Mar 14 '17 at 20:16
  • @SDsolar, the Drive button on Gmail does work. so, I suppose it is a local issue to my desktop. – Jacob K Mar 19 '17 at 13:04
  • @Sc00T, I didn't do a full reinstall. I initially downloaded and installed the Drive deskop app on my user account. It won't launch on my user account but when I switch to my testing admin account, the application does launch. This is unusual since my user account also has admin rights. – Jacob K Mar 19 '17 at 13:08

8 Answers8

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In my case, the problem was that the link from C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS was poiting to an unexisting folder. I've created that folder and Drive opened with the preferences window.

Dani Rodríguez
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  • Thanks for this - my DriveFS directory existed, but I renamed it (to DriveFSOld), and that fixed the issue. I guess it must have been a permissions problem. – cometfish Jan 21 '22 at 06:15
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Try enabling google-drive (google cloud) on Windows start up programs.

  1. Ctrl+Alt+Delete to go to the task manager.
  2. Go to the “startup” tab
  3. Find “googledrivesync.exe” and enable it.

Of course, if it is enabled there, this solution won't work.

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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user2387584
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So it won't launch but the Drive button in gmail does work.

That's good - it means your account is not the problem.

So the immediate answer, until you figure out the desktop problem, is to go to http://drive.google.com/ in your browser - you can get most of the functionality that way.

Check out this similar question - some people have found a solution to a similar problem: Google Drive terminates without error on startup

If that doesn't help, then keep using Google search to find answers from others with similar difficulties.

SDsolar
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What I ended up doing was to just create a new account on my machine and migrate all the files from my old account to the new one.

Drive desktop app worked fine after that.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

Jacob K
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  1. delete GDrive registry
  2. delete GDrive forlder
  3. delete google account in CHrome
  4. uninstall Gdrive
  5. Install Gdrive worked for me ...., 3hrs later
gm-krk
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The problem seem to come from the profile settings at User Profiles in Windows (Cant say for sure as im not a pro).

But after I deleted C:\Users\<Your Windows user here>\AppData\Local\Google the problem was temporary fixed but after reboot it would reappear.

I solved this error by doing the following:

  1. I created another Windows 10 User
  2. Installed Google Drive for that User
  3. After reboot the problem is not appearing.

Regards and hope this helps as I know it is frustrating to deal with.

help-info.de
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Star Breaker
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I had this problem today, here's what I found that worked for me on Windows 10:

First, Log in as an administrator and uninstall Backup and Sync.

Then, for EVERY USER on the computer, do the following:

  1. Log off every other user, and log in as this user.
  2. Rename or delete the directory that Backup and Sync was using for your google drive data.
  3. Uninstall google drive (this will probably require administrator permissions.)
  4. Reboot
  5. Log in as the user.
  6. Delete the "Program Files\Google\Drive File Stream" directory (administrator permissions again.)
  7. Reboot
  8. Log in as the user.
  9. Install Google Drive for Desktop (administrator permissions again.)
  10. When it asks, allow it to delete Backup and sync (which you already uninstalled.)
  11. At this point, things should be working for that user and all previously handled users.
  12. Reboot anyway, just in case.
Greg
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This problem has plagued me for some time, so today I searched the web and found a lot of other people are plagued by it, too. Here's what I did. It worked on my machine, but I cannot guarantee it will work on yours. I can only say that indiscriminately deleting files, especially files you did not create, is a really bad idea. So use at your own risk!

Step 1: Uninstall Google Drive.

Step 2: Delete the directory named Drive. WARNING: You cannot delete just any ol' directory named Drive; it has to be the right one. So to help you out, here's a more detailed description: It contains a file named user_default, which contains files named pid, lockfile, sync_log.log, and directories named cloud_graph, CrashReports, and TempData. There are probably other files and directories floating around, too.

I found this directory inside C:\Users\<myUserId>\AppData\Local\Google. If you are using Windows 7 Home Premium (SP 1), you will perhaps find it in the same place. If you're using a different operating system, you may not find it in the same place, so you'll have to go hunting for it.

Step 3: Reinstall Google Drive.

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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Warren Gaebel
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