Google Drive for Desktop

Available on Tier 1/2 CAT supported Windows desktops. The Google Drive for desktop client cooperates with our roaming network user profiles and enables users to access their Google Drive storage as a mapped drive.

To run it, look for “Google Drive” in the start menu.  If you want to access your PSU Google Drive files, use “username@pdx.edu” to be sent to OIT’s login authentication. When have successfully authenticated, your PSU Google Drive files will appear under the G: drive.

We have noticed the following caveats with the implementation:

  • You may have to re-authenticate upon logging back in, especially if you are switching to different computers.
  • View/edit files by double clicking on them. The “open with” option on explorer to select a browser provides an incorrect URL.
  • The browser it brings up for files is taken from your default browser setting. On Windows 10, we have found that the Edge browser is rather unstable in our environment and recommend setting the default to something else. (eg IE, Chrome, Firefox)
  • You can only be logged into one Google account at a time when using the Google Drive desktop client. If you switch to a different Google account, your previous account will not be visible.

The old Google Drive Client, which never worked properly in our roaming profile environment, has been deprecated.