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How to Confirm that OneDrive is Synchronizing your Files

OneDrive Synchronizing with Windows

AlwaysUp is designed to run OneDrive all the time — starting it when your PC boots and keeping synchronization going 24×7 despite failures or other unexpected interruptions. You don’t even need to log on!

But to gain those benefits, AlwaysUp must launch OneDrive in the background as a Windows Service. In that situation, described in our tutorial showing how to setup OneDrive as a Windows Service, OneDrive’s usual “cloud” icon won’t appear on your taskbar. You won’t see the informative icon overlays beside the files and folders being synchronized either. And without those visual elements, how do you know that your important files and folders are being copied to and from the cloud?

Perform this easy 4-step test to prove that your files are protected:

  1. Start OneDrive in AlwaysUp

    From AlwaysUp, select “Start OneDrive” from the “Application” menu:

    Your service should transition to Running after a few seconds. Clicking on the green circle should reveal details of the running process:

    Please consult our online troubleshooter or get in touch if you can’t get this far!

  2. Wait for five minutes while OneDrive starts

    OneDrive can take a while to initialize itself — especially if it has a long list of files and folders to synchronize. This is a good opportunity for you to:

    OneDrive should be ready and waiting when you return.

  3. Create a new file in your OneDrive folder

    Open your OneDrive folder in Windows Explorer. Right-click in the files area (on the right), select New > Text Document and give the file a suitable name:

    We called our file “TestSync.txt”:

  4. Login to OneDrive online and confirm that the new file is there

    Sign in to your OneDrive account and browse to your files. The new text file should be listed, as it was for us:

    If you don’t see the new file, do a few more stretches and try again. Sometimes OneDrive can be a bit slow…

What should I do if my file didn’t show up?

If your new file wasn’t listed online, something is definitely wrong with your setup. We’re here to help! Please get in touch so that we can get you going ASAP.

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Why Does Windows SmartScreen Flag Our Software?

Windows SmartScreen Filter Warning

Last month we released a new version of our popular run-anything-as-a-windows-service software, AlwaysUp. Everything was going smoothly — until we encountered a very alarming situation while testing the new software on Windows 10!

After downloading the new AlwaysUp installation executable with Microsoft Edge, the browser asserted that “AlwaysUp_Installer.exe is not commonly downloaded and may harm your computer”. WHAT??

Clicking the Actions button gave us the option to “Run Anyway”, and the installation completed without further incident, but the whole experience left our team worried and full of questions. Specifically:

  • Why did this suddenly start happening?
  • How will our customers react to Microsoft’s unfounded suspicions?
  • And most importantly, how do we get rid of the chilling warnings?

SmartScreen Complains because our Software is “New”

Apparently we’re not the only developers tormented by SmartScreen. Warnings are common, especially for small software companies like ours. The “Criticism” section of the Wikipedia article on SmartScreen Filter says it best:

SmartScreen Filter creates a problem for small software vendors when they distribute an updated version of installation or binary files over the internet. Whenever an updated version is released, SmartScreen responds by stating that the file is not commonly downloaded and can therefore install harmful files on your system.

Only a Few Customers are Blocked by SmartScreen Filter

To date, only one customer has asked about SmartScreen’s warning. We had expected hundreds! Fortunately there are a few reasons why many customers aren’t being tripped up by Microsoft’s overly cautious approach:

  1. Our products are digitally signed for security and authenticity. SmartScreen takes this as a positive sign and is likely to avoid prompting all customers all the time.
  2. Prior to Windows 8, SmartScreen Filter was a part of Internet Explorer. Thus customers using Chrome or Firefox on Windows 7 and Server 2008 will never encounter SmartScreen warnings.
  3. After testing downloads on Windows 8, 10 and Windows Server 2012 and 2016, we only received warnings on Windows 10 with Edge.

So it seems that SmartScreen warnings are largely limited to customers using Internet Explorer or Edge. Metrics gathered from our website (via the incredibly useful StatCounter) tell us that only about 11% of all visitors are using those browsers:

Time (and Good Behavior) will Disarm SmartScreen Filter

We hoped for a simple solution: Inform Microsoft that our software is 100% safe and they would promptly update their SmartScreen database to remove all warnings. All would be right with the world. But SmartScreen doesn’t work like that.

SmartScreen is reputation based. Each time someone downloads our software package and declares that it is safe to install, that executable gains some positive reputation. Once enough people have successfully installed and the accumulated reputation crosses some magic threshold, the warnings disappear. Only an established track record of doing no harm will halt the SmartScreen dogs.

Indeed, after a couple of weeks the warnings for AlwaysUp version 10 seems to have gone away:

Yay!

Posted in Windows | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

AlwaysUp Version 10 Released: Keep Your Windows App Running 24/7/365

Version 10 of AlwaysUp, which runs any application as a Windows Service, was released last month. The major changes include:

  • Improved compatibility with Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows Server 2016.
  • Several annoying Data Execution Prevention (DEP) issues on Windows 8 & 10 were resolved.
  • A new command line switch to grant the service user access to the current desktop was introduced.
  • When stopping a group of services, an alert is no longer shown when a long-lived service exceeds the 1-minute time limit.
  • If necessary, the service account is now granted full access to the window station and desktop objects when starting in the current session.

As usual, please review the version history for the full list of features, fixes and improvements included in this release.

Upgrading to AlwaysUp Version 10

As per our upgrade policy, customers who purchased AlwaysUp 9 (after September 2014) can upgrade to version 10 at no additional cost. Just download and install “over the top” to preserve your existing applications an all settings. Your registration code will continue to work.

If you bought AlwaysUp version 8 or earlier (before September 2014), you will need to upgrade to use version 10. Please purchase upgrades here — at a 50% discount.

Enjoy!

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How to Turn Off OneDrive Automatic Updates

Automatic software updates are usually very welcome. You get bug fixes, security enhancements and the latest and greatest features, all without lifting a finger!

But automatic updates have a dark side as well. What happens if an update, which usually involves shutting down the software, takes place at a “bad” time and interrupts the application when it is busy with an important task? Or worse — what if a newly updated version introduces a defect that causes the software to fail in the wee hours of the morning when no one is there to fix it? The potential for problems like these should give anyone operating a 24×7 environment serious pause when weighing the pros and cons of automatic updates!

Such is the dilemma facing our customers running OneDrive 24×7 as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp. As seen in the screenshot of the OneDrive installation procedure above, OneDrive is free to download and install updates whenever it likes. But perhaps we can do something about that…

OneDrive is Auto Updated by a Scheduled Task

A little detective work using Microsoft’s excellent autoruns utility led us to realize that OneDrive installs a scheduled task called OneDrive Standalone Update Task v2 to perform its updates. Here it is in the Task Scheduler — configured to run “OneDriveStandaloneUpdater.exe” once daily when the Administrator is logged on:

OneDrive Standalone Update Task

The task’s history confirms that the update check is indeed firing at a random time each day:

OneDrive Scheduled Task - History

This is how OneDrive updates itself!

Disable the Scheduled Task to Prevent OneDrive Auto Updates

To prevent OneDrive from automatically updating itself, simply disable the scheduled task. Right-click on the entry in the Task Scheduler and select Disable from the context menu to do the trick:

Disable OneDrive Scheduled Task

With the task disabled, the auto-update will no longer run and you will be stuck with the version of OneDrive currently installed. Great!

Now please don’t forget to update OneDrive occasionally — to get those important bug fixes, security enhancements and exciting new features. But do so in a safe, controlled environment at a time of your choosing, when you can perform the necessary testing and avoid unwelcome surprises.

May 2024 Update

The current version of OneDrive still installs a scheduled task to automatically update OneDrive. But, as described in the documentation from Microsoft, the OneDrive executable now downloads and installs updates automatically:

 The OneDrive sync app checks for available updates every 24 hours when it’s running. If it stops and doesn’t check for updates in more than 24 hours, the sync app checks for updates as soon as it starts.

As a result, disabling the scheduled task will only prevent automatic updates when OneDrive isn’t running.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Automatic Update Breaks Google Drive Windows Service

Google Drive Problem

Google Drive Service Not Synchronizing Files on Windows

Last Thursday Jeremy Farber from Securis reported a problem with his Google Drive Windows Service:

 Having an issue with Google Drive where the sync doesn’t seem to take place right away. Any thoughts on what would cause this? I really need the sync to happen like it would normally when a file hits the folder it syncs.

Now problems like this can be difficult to troubleshoot when the application is running invisibly in the background (in Session 0). We advised Jeremy to restart Google Drive in the current session — to show Drive’s tray icon and windows on his desktop.

But Drive still refused to sync. It threw up a curious error:

After some detective work, Jeremy found the problem. A recent automatic software update had broken the Drive desktop client!

Beta Version of Google Drive Released By Mistake

Here is what the king of search reported on its status dashboard at 2:41 PM Eastern:

We’re aware of a problem with Google Drive affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are able to access Google Drive, but are seeing error messages and/or other unexpected behavior. We will provide an update by 3/16/17, 3:41 PM detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Some users of the Google Drive Sync client will be receiving the error message “Sorry, Backup and Sync needs to quit.”

We have identified the root cause of the issue and are implementing a potential fix now.

So it seems and a buggy version of the Drive desktop client (soon to be renamed “Backup and Sync”?) was inadvertently pushed out to thousands of computers. Ouch!

Thankfully the disruption only lasted until 7:22 PM EDT. Again, from the status page:

The problem with Google Drive should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.

The Windows client will automatically update with this fixed version within the next 10 hours. Alternatively, affected users can download the updated version of the client from https://www.google.com/drive/download/. Affected Windows 10 users may be required to sign in to their Google account within the client.

A Cautionary Tale If You Need Google Drive To Stay Up 24/7!

Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that automatic updates have caused trouble for our customers using Google Drive. This article describes similar adventures that occurred in June of 2013.

But this most recent episode reminds us of the perils accompanying automatic updates. Despite the best of intentions, the same powerful system that distributes important security fixes and improvements will happily deliver corrosive bugs and destabilize your previously working software. For this reason, automatic software updates should be viewed with skepticism in professional environments where downtime is costly. Indeed, we recommend disabling updates for your mission-critical programs and scheduling manual upgrades during a safe maintenance window.

Sadly Google Drive doesn’t offer an easy way to avoid auto updates. Disabling a few scheduled tasks should stop the madness but we’ll do some digging and let you know if we come across a less intrusive method.

Stay tuned!

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