How to remove green check marks from OneDrive Windows 7

You can change the account you use with OneDrive, but you can't use the folder with multiple accounts at the same time.

To change the account you use with OneDrive

Right-click the OneDrive icon (The OneDrive icon) in the notification area, at the far right of the taskbar, and then click Settings. On the Settings tab, click Unlink OneDrive.

Restart OneDrive and sign in with the account you want to use. You'll need to select the location for your OneDrive folder again. If you select the same location, the folders for both accounts will be merged. If the PC had the Fetch files feature turned on, you'll need to turn it on again.

More at the FAQ

EDIT: New technique.

Since 2 upgrades ago, you can now simply uninstall Microsoft OneDrive if you don't plan to use it.

To do so, open Settings->Apps and from the list, search for "Microsoft OneDrive", then click uninstall.

Because this is an app not a program, it is not listed as program in the Control Panel.

EDIT: Small addition to this update: Given that you actually uninstall the app, it seems that the app is not being reinstalled after an upgrade, whereas with the techniques below, it will come back as the app itself is being reinstalled. So if you uninstall OneDrive, it will be gone until you reinstall it through the Windows Store.

--------[ Old answer below]-------------------------

OneDrive also was part of windows 8, except that there, it was hidden. That gave much more trouble for when you actually wanted to use it vs not wanting to use it.

But it seems that disabling (not entirely getting rid of) is not that hard.

To stop OneDrive from starting at boot

Remove its startup entry from the registry, which is located here:

HKEY_LocalMachine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

If you delete the OneDrive entry there, and either use task manager to kill the process, right click the icon and choose exit or reboot, OneDrive will not be loaded anymore.

Now you can remove the OneDrive folder located at C:\Users\%USERNAME%\OneDrive

To remove OneDrive from the Explorer sidebar

With a bit of searching and digging, I found this key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A52BBA46-E9E1-435f-B3D9-28DAA648C0F6}] which lead me to the relevant CLSID, which is: {018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

So the registry key you want to remove is this one:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6}

If you go to this key, it should say OneDrive and should have the following subfolders: DefaultIcon, InProcServer32, Instance and ShellFolder, where Instance has another subfolder named InitPropertyBag.