Win7 and Win10 on same account using Onedrive

Posted on Tens forum, but maybe more Win7ers have seen this issue:

I have a Win7 machine that uses Onedrive to keep Desktop, Documents etc safe on cloud. This is tied to my MS account. I added a Win10 machine using same MS account.

There appears to be a problem in including Desktop in Onedrive.

There are some links on Win 7 desktop that would not work on Win10. I will likely use machines for different purposes, so desktops will need to be different.

Presumably I could exclude both Desktops from Onedrive, but then it would not be backed up. I tried excluding desktop from Onedrive on one machine, and screen went blank except for 1 or 2 icons. Got it back, but what to do now?

Create a folder on each computer called "Backup of <PC Name> Desktop" and put it in your Downloads. Set up an automated backup utility (e.g. the free version of SyncBack would work fine) to automatically backup your desktop at whatever interval you want (daily, hourly, weekly, etc.) to that folder. Then be sure OneDrive is backing up your Downloads

Your OneDrive will then have a Downloads folder that has a "Backup of PC1 Desktop" folder and a "Backup of PC2 Desktop" folder in it.

garycase said:

Create a folder on each computer called "Backup of <PC Name> Desktop" and put it in your Downloads. Set up an automated backup utility (e.g. the free version of SyncBack would work fine) to automatically backup your desktop at whatever interval you want (daily, hourly, weekly, etc.) to that folder. Then be sure OneDrive is backing up your Downloads

Your OneDrive will then have a Downloads folder that has a "Backup of PC1 Desktop" folder and a "Backup of PC2 Desktop" folder in it.

That sounds good. I do use AOMEI and it will do that.

But there may be a problem. I would then have to remove Desktop from the folders Onedrive syncs (on both 7 and 10). When I do that the desktop goes blank immediately. Maybe I could then restore from the backup and rename it back to Desktop?

Must be a common problem, so still interested to hear if others have experienced same issue and how they have addressed it.