Disable Microsoft Office Upload Center

Question

With Microsoft Office 2013 and 2016, Microsoft Office Upload Center runs automatically and shows up in the system tray. I don't use it and want stop it from running.

How can I remove that program completely?

Answer 1

"You can't disable it and if you remove it from start up it still loads up anyway. All you can do is open task manager and end the process for MSOSYNC.EXE, pretty lame I know, but there's no way of disabling it and this info is coming from the office365 forum!"

Not true.

You can disable the Microsoft Office Upload Center easily in the registry- but this is the only way.

Microsoft went out of their way to stop people from doing this in the GUI, and even MSCONFIG won't work.

Here's the registry fix (only tested on Windows 7 + Office 2010... see other answers for more recent versions of Windows/Office):

Locate:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

and delete the OfficeSyncProcess entry that points to the current location of MSOSYNC.EXE.

Microsoft's arrogance on this whole issue is astonishing:

Many people are turning to forums in frustration to turn off this feature.

These people want to disable it, so do these, and these, and even these.

It shouldn't be enabled automatically when you simply run SharePoint/SkyDrive once- and if it is, then it should be possible to turn it off without rolling up your sleeves and hacking the registry.

Poor show, Microsoft. Poor show.

Answer 2

To disable/configure this open up the Task Scheduler and click on the Task Scheduler Library node. You should see a task here labelled Microsoft Office 15 Sync Maintenance for USERNAME.

Disable the whole trigger (right click and choose disable) or change the Properties of this to amend the trigger that starts the job. For instance, you can delete the trigger that starts on user log on.

Answer 3

Using Microsoft Office 2016 with Windows 10 and the now completely integrated OneDrive application...

Updated for OneDrive Version 2016 (Build 17.3.6517.0809) as of Aug. 2016

1. Right click on the OneDrive tray icon and choose settings.

   
   
   

2. Navigate to the Office tab and uncheck "Use Office to sync office files"

   
   
   

3. Reboot computer and Office Upload Center will no longer load at start-up.

Answer 4

Note, this answer was written in the early days of Office 2013 and is reported to be out of date. Original answer follows...

Out of desperation I renamed the executable msosync.exe so that office cannot find it. Dirty, yes, but I have had no problems with this approach and now my computer works much better again :)

Answer 5

Just rename this file

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\msosync.exe

Answer 6

This is a terrible MS pushed annoyance, and to make it worse, MS insists that you use it by constantly avoiding previous removal procedures. So here is my attempt to collect and update some (currently) working solutions. The post answers here will probably need to be updated again, in a few months...

These instructions are for disabling Microsoft Office Upload Center on the MS Office 2013 Home & Student Edition on Windows 8.1.

1. Optionally:

   • Uninstall SharePoint
   • Uninstall SkyDrive

2. Kill the processes:

   a) Stop the system service "Microsoft Office Service". (Perhaps permanently disable?)

   b) Use Process Explorer to kill all of the following processes if present:

   integratedoffice.exe
   MSOSYNC.EXE
   CSISYNCCLIENT.EXE
   OSPPSVC.EXE
   MSOUC.EXE 
   

   c) Rename the following *.EXE files by adding ".disabled" to thier filenames in [1]:

   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\MSOUC.EXE
   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\MSOSYNC.EXE
   

   and possibly also:

   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\MSOHTMED.EXE
   

   [1] This folder have also been found to be located in:

   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\
   

3. Replace the above files with fake *.EXE files:

   a) Create and edit a new text file called MSOSYNC.txt with command:

   quit
   

   b) Copy and rename the file MSOSYNC.txt to:

   MSOSYNC.EXE
   MSOUC.EXE
   

   c) Set correct file permissions, if necessary.

4. Remove the entry from the Task Scheduler:

   a) Open Control Panel and go to:

   Control Panel >> System and Security >> Administrative Tools
   

   b) Select and open "Task Scheduler".

   c) Click on the "Task Scheduler Library" icon. [on the left side/pane]

   d) Find and click on:
   "Microsoft Office 15 Sync Maintenance for - "

   e) Click on the "Actions" [tab] and check that it reads something like:

   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Root\Office15\MsoSync.exe
   

   f) In the right pane, under "Selected Item", click "Disable"

5. Other suspicious tasks to check:

   1) Expand the "Task Scheduler Library" tab [on the left pane]
   2) >> Microsoft >> Office >> Office Automatic Updates
   3) >> Microsoft >> Windows >> SettingSync >> BackgroundUploadTask
   4) >> Microsoft >> Windows >> SkyDrive >> Idle Sync Maintenance Task 
   

6. Disallow Office to connect to the internet.

   a) Open any office application like Word, and go to:

   File >> Options >> Trust Center [on bottom left]
   

   b) Under "Microdsoft Word Trust Center" header [bottom], select:

   "Trust Center Settings..." button [bottom right] 
   

   c) In the new "Trust Center" window go to:

   Privacy Options [on bottom left]
   

   d) Under "Privacy Options" header, unselect Allow Office to connect to the Internet.

---

Here are some additional possible solutions, but which I have not tried:

7. Change the Group Policy for Everyone, by adding MSOSYNC.EXE to 'List of disallowed applications'.
8. Disable the system service called: "Microsoft Office Service"
9. Edit the registry...
10. Removing everything related to the "Microsoft Office Workspaces".

Answer 7

It appears that with Office 2013, MSOSYNC is under a new process called "CSISYNCCLIENT.EXE" I found this in process explorer. Perhaps if you searched for that in the registry, it could be disabled

Answer 8

You might want to have a look at this MS answer.
In that case the user removed Office 2013, but still had SkyDrive Desktop app installed, and there was a SkyDrive setting referring to the upload center.

In my case, I only had Sharepoint Designer 2013 installed (Office suite was stuck at 2010, and I already disabled its upload center): that answer worked for me.

Answer 9

For Windows 7/8 Users this process can be disable from auto-run only by accessing Task Scheduler in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools . You must Look for Microsoft -> Office Folder and disable all tasks located in Office folder.

Answer 10

You can't disable it and if you remove it from start up it still loads up anyway. All you can do is open task manager and end the process for MSOSYNC.EXE, pretty lame I know, but there's no way of disabling it and this info is coming from the office365 forum!