Feb 15 2021 10:22 AM - edited Feb 26 2021 05:14 PM
This is a really dramatic and surprising result so I wanted to tell people about it. A few months back I started to have a lot of problems with my Windows 10 Pro machine and they all happened at the same time. File explorer wouldn't refresh automatically (delete a file and it wouldn't go away until I explicitly selected refresh on the screen), print stopped working even to a usb attached printer, notepad print never worked (notepad would hang up after printing something from it), the machine wouldn't shut down if you used the gui shutdown controls. Since it happened suddenly and they were Windows functions I thought it was Windows update that caused the problems. I actually got into some Windows recovery situations and I noticed the recovery was failing on an apple icloud directory (something like ~/apple.com/Numbers) which made me suspicious. For the file explorer situation I tried a ton of things from the internet and none of them would work long term. Then I uninstalled the Apple iCloud App ( you have to uninstall it in Settings -> Apps, it isn't in Control Panel Uninstall Programs). The result was dramatic. All the problems on my Windows 10 Pro machine went away and I am very convinced it was uninstalling Apple iCloud and rebooting that did it.
Just in case it matters I didn't have iTunes or Apple Music on this Win 10 Pro machine, I only downloaded the iCloud For Windows App.
I didn't do anything low level technical with Apple iCloud, like use Regedit against it. I do have a lot of Development tools like Visual Studio and MS Sql and Oracle on my machine but I wouldn't think those would interact with Apple iCloud. I did try to use the mounted iCloud drive and noticed that it had some problems. I don't think the initial install of Apple iCloud caused the problem, but some use of Apple iCloud going forward encountered a problem and messed things up after that. But uninstalling Apple iCloud fixed everything. I like Apple. I am a technical person and have a Mac and other Apple equipment. But these problems are serious and if you are having them try uninstalling Apple iCloud for Windows if you have it.
Feb 27 2021 01:11 AM
Oct 18 2023 12:18 PM
@FlashGordon7 thank you for sharing, I have same problem with file explorer and with Apple numbers files up/down loading to my i-Cloud folder. I will try your fix and, hopefully, obtain a good result!
Oct 18 2023 01:50 PM
@-Joe254- After deleting the i-Cloud App and restarting my computer, everything returned to normal and file explorer worked properly, i.e. when I deleted a file from a folder, it disappeared promptly and no longer remained visible until I manually refreshed it via F5 or clicking the refresh icon. I have not reinstalled the app to see if it would work normally with it installed again.
If you are having a similar problem, and have the i-Cloud app installed, you may wish to try FlashGordon7's recommendation. It worked for me. I'm pretty sure the problems started after I used the Numbers App and tried to upload or download a file created with it.