How to change the User Account Control policies to allow OneDrive context menus

If you are missing OneDrive context menu items in Windows File Explorer, you won't see the options to "Share" or "View online".

This could be because your organization has restricted certain settings, or because OneDrive may be running with "elevated privileges", which is not supported.

To see if elevated privileges are the issue:

  1. Right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager.
  2. Select the Details tab.
  3. If you don't see the Elevated column, right-click a column header and choose Select columns and check the Elevated option to add it to the view.
  4. Look at the Elevated column for the OneDrive.exe and Explorer.exe processes. 
  5. Select the tab which describes the result

If the Elevated status is "No", change the User Account Control security settings using the steps below:

  1. Run secpol.msc to open the Local Security Policy.

  2. Expand Local Policies, then open the Security Options.

  3. Look for the policies regarding the User Account Control and set them as shown below:

    Policy Security Setting
    Virtualize file and registry write failures to per-user locations Enabled
    Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation Disabled
    Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode Enabled
    Only elevate UIAccess applications that are installed in secure locations Enabled
    Only elevate executables that are signed and validated Disabled
    Detect application installations and prompt for elevation Enabled
    Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users Prompt for credentials
    Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode Elevate without prompting
    Allow UIAccess applications to prompt for elevation without using the secure desktop Disabled
    Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account Enabled
  4. Restart the computer.

See also

Share OneDrive files and folders

Unable to share OneDrive files

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