Disable co-authoring in one-drive

Hello,

With the last few versions of OneDrive, the cloud version of files gets opened, not the local version. “New” files and “Save As” files are also saved straight to the cloud.

A-  As suggested on many forum posts:

1. Turn off the "AutoSave ..." feature in Setting/Save in all Office 365 applications.
   
   
2. For Onedrive Personal account, change the CoAuthEnabledUserSetting parameter to “false” in the “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneDrive\settings\Personal\Global.ini” file.
   
   
3. For Onedrive Business account, change the CoAuthEnabledUserSetting parameter to “false” in the “%LOCALAPPDATA%\ \Microsoft\OneDrive\settings\Business1\Global.ini” file.
   
   
4. Stop/close Onedrive
   
   
5. Close all Office applications. Pay attention to WinWord that runs in the background; use TaskManager to terminate WinWord.
   
   
6. Restart Onedrive.
   
   
7. From within the OneDrive folder, open an Office file, to verify which version has opened*
   •   The file Cloud version opens, AGAIN ?!
   •   Check the CoAuthEnabledUserSetting parameter it has flipped back to "True"?!

1. To preserve CoAuthEnabledUserSetting=false, you must set Global.ini as ReadOnly.
   •   Setting Global.ini as Read Only also prevents other updates in Global.ini. Update like Timestamps,
        Application versions, Troubleshooting and Personal Vault information…

I believe the Read Only attribute must NOT be used.

B-  To preserve CoAuthEnabledUserSetting=false, I found that one or many of the following executables
      are responsible for the flip of CoAuthEnabledUserSetting:

1. In the “%ProgramFiles % \Microsoft OneDrive\25.020.0202.0001” folder, change the file extension from EXE to XXX of the following executable files:
        •  FileCoAuth.exe
        •  FileSyncConfig.exe
        •  FileSyncHelper.exe
        •  Microsoft.SharePoint.NativeMessagingClient.exe
        •  Microsoft.SharePoint.exe

• I may be using an elephant gun to shoot a mouse; you are right; I do not use the other
             executables; they only consume CPU time and memory. Should you need them do some test,
             but keep FileCoAuth as FileCoAuth.XXX

1. Remove the ReadOnly attribute from Global.ini.
   
   
2. Redo the above steps: 1, 2 or 3, reboot your computer and redo step 7
   •   The file Local version opens, AT LAST !!!
   •   Check the CoAuthEnabledUserSetting parameter, it should still be “false” !!

C- As Window Update takes place, the last part of the path
     “%ProgramFiles%\MicrosoftOneDrive\25.020.0202.0001\” may change, find the new path
     and redo above steps 9 and 11.

* To test which file version has opened, make a Save As (F12 key in Excel or Word), in the dialog box notice the “save to” destination.

** Based on your OneDrive version the file path may be different, see paragraph C.

Alain