{"id":4603,"date":"2018-04-08T09:43:13","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T16:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/?p=4603"},"modified":"2023-02-04T06:32:05","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T14:32:05","slug":"multiple-instances-onedrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coretechnologies.com\/blog\/alwaysup\/multiple-instances-onedrive\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: Can I Run Multiple Instances of OneDrive?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Q<\/div>\n
\n  I have tried AlwaysUp to let OneDrive run as a service<\/a>. Everything works perfectly, but is it possible to create multiple OneDrive services? I have tried it and when I start the second service event logs suggest that the application crashed.<\/p>\n

— Bernhard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nHi Bernhard. Here is what we have learned from experimenting with Microsoft OneDrive<\/a> on our Windows Server 2016 machine:<\/p>\n

You can run multiple copies of OneDrive on your PC<\/b><\/h2>\n

We created two user accounts and installed OneDrive<\/a> in each. Setup went smoothly and both users were able to start OneDrive normally. Here you can see the two copies of the executable running in the Task Manager:<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a><\/div>\n

Next, we installed OneDrive as a windows service in one of the accounts. That arrangement worked fine as well, with a copy of OneDrive.exe running in the isolated Session 0 and another in a regular, interactive login session (#3):<\/p>\n

\"OneDrive<\/a><\/div>\n

Note that we had to turn off the “Stop all copies…” setting on the AlwaysUp Startup tab (to avoid terminating the non-service copy):<\/p>\n

\"AlwaysUp<\/a><\/div>\n

But you cannot run multiple copies of OneDrive in one Login Session<\/b><\/h2>\n

When we setup both users to run OneDrive as a windows service, the first copy started but the second one failed. AlwaysUp kept trying to launch OneDrive, but it simply refused to start:<\/p>\n

\"OneDrive<\/a><\/div>\n

It seems that multiple copies of OneDrive won’t run in Session 0.<\/p>\n

Removing AlwaysUp from the equation, we see the same behavior in a regular login session. The first instance of OneDrive started fine, with the usual “clouds” tray icon showing up on the taskbar. However, when we launched a second copy:<\/p>\n