How to disable Microsoft Upload Center 2013 ?

Hi,

It worked exactly. First thanks to Anula D'Souza. 

Thnx.

Solved

After trying everything I could find to stop Word 2013 (Home-Office click to run)from 'uploading to OneDrive' within Word, and crashing; having word think it was saving to a (local) network folder solved all problems for the single user that had no use for sharepoint. Note: the OneDrive folder must be behind the users folder (a Microsoft default).

Solution: in the options for word, change the default local save path (and save to this UNC path) i.e. '\WorkPC\users\scott\onedrive\documents'  ('\WorkPC\users' ... - network path was the default sytem created UNC path for this machine and user (discovery is turned on) (NOTE: use your computer name for "workpc" and the correct user name and path to the documents folder for the profile wanting to save directly to the local onedrive folder....

Office Upload Center does not allow syncing a network UNC path (local network location), so it does nothing (finally kinda disabled), and OneDrive in Windows 8.1 sees the change on the local machine and syncs.

I've got one more suggestion on how to work around this MSOSYNC.EXE issue.

CCleaner is still great for removing it from the startup but it will most likely get added back in by some other service (irritating!). I got sick of all the work of disabling it and creating tasks to keep it disabled. So I created a quick script that will disable it permanently without modifying the registry. This script uses standard MS utilities already on every system. The idea is to remove all permissions to execute (or even read) the file from everything on the system. The file cannot run if no one has access to it.

For those not familiar with MS shell scripting, "rem" and "::" are comments, "taskkill" kills tasks, "takeown" takes ownership (forces), "cacls" changes NTFS permissions. All of these are well documented but use at own risk. My script will work on both x86 and x64 installations and will attempt to work with all future versions of Office (i.e. office14 vs office15). If they change the name of the executable it will not work.

Just copy the following into a text file and rename to .bat or .cmd extension to run it. I've used it multiple times and it works great for me. What a SILLY problem to have.

:: beginning of script

@echo off

taskkill /f /im msosync.exe 2>NUL

echo Y>\_yes

cd "\Program Files"

for /f "usebackq delims=" %%i in (dir /s /b msosync.exe 2^>NUL) do (

 if exist "%%~i" (

  echo disabling %%~i

  takeown /f "%%~i" /a > NUL 2>&1

  cacls "%%~i" /c /t /p everyone:n < \_yes > NUL 2>&1

 )

)

cd "\Program Files (x86)"

for /f "usebackq delims=" %%i in (dir /s /b msosync.exe 2^>NUL) do (

 if exist "%%~i" (

  echo disabling %%~i

  takeown /f "%%~i" /a > NUL 2>&1

  cacls "%%~i" /c /t /p everyone:n < \_yes > NUL 2>&1

 )

)

del /f /q \_yes

pause

rem to enable...

rem cacls "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\MSOSYNC.EXE" /c /t /p everyone:g

:: end of script

Good luck!

Under Windows 8.1 and Office 2013 the Microsoft Upload Center 2013 (MSOSYNC.EXE) is started by a tasks in Task Sceduler, but it is not under "Microsoft" like some other Office 2013 Tasks (eg. Office 15 Subscription Heartbeat and OfficeTelemetryAgent).

I have the sceduled Task under "Task Sceduler Library" (above "Microsoft"), and there the tasks is called "Microsoft Office 15 Sync Maintenance for [MACHINE NAME - User]. If you check this task, you see it run "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\MsoSync.exe" (I have 64bit Office) with a few different triggers.

It says very cryptical this task makes sure the cache for Microsoft Office Documents stays in good condition, and there is a warning that if you disable this tasks it can lead into problems when you work with online stuff ... well, it would be nice if they instead could say in clear text what it does!

I do not have the sceduled task on all boxes, even if all boxes has Windows 8.1 + Office 2013 Pro (non subscription). I cannot at this stage say why not on all boxes, or what creates the sceduled task. Note that I do not have a "Desktop Skydrive" application, nor am I logged in with Microsoft Accounts (only local accounts), and hence do not use the Skydrive App either.

It's up to you to decide if you want to try to disable the tasks in Task Sceduler, but it might come back by itself. The phenomen that some people have seen that it runs awhile and then disapears, only to run again at a later stage, is obviously because it only does some maintenance tasks to this mystical "cache" and then kills itself. I asume it does only local stuff, and nothing on the Internet, at least not if not logged into Skyrive or your Microsoft Account when using Office. How could it? So, that the task runs for a while now and then, probably isn't doing any big harm - except that it irritates you a lot!

As a sidenote one of the triggers by me is that it will next time run on 1st of April, which confirms the whole Microsoft Upload Center is a BIG JOKE? :)

Hello,

I have listed in the Task Scheduler Library a Office 15 Subscription Heartbeat, which triggers daily at 12:00 AM which start at log on of any user, after triggered, repeat every 12:00 indefinitely.

       

I purchased and installed a non-subscription version of Office 2013 Pro Plus.

WHY is there a surreptitious entry in Task Schduler which verifies a permanent licne on a daily basis?

WHY is this entry made without knowledge or permission of the user?

There are numerous pother Windows 8 / 8.1 and Office 2013 tasks which trigger silently without alerting the user that info is being collected and sent to Microsoft.

WHAT makes these tasks any different from a worm communicating with its' server?