Provide non-admin mode from the Windows installer

[cosmicice0]

Hey there,

I'm trying to install github cli, but it seems like it needs admin privileges on windows. Is there a way to get a non-admin installer or a portable version?

Thanks!

[cosmicice0]

Sorry, I just found out that there's a zip release in the releases page. Thanks :)

[mislav]

Thanks for letting us know! In the future, we might try to allow a non-admin install.

Protip: you can also install over package managers such as Chocolatey or Scoop 👍

[l3ender]

It would be nice if the zip install were mentioned in the install notes and linked to from the download page. For those in an enterprise environment, admin privileges or package managers are usually not options.

[leonard84]

IMHO, the installer should ask whether to install for all users (admin) or only for current user (appdata local).

[mislav]

Thanks for the additional context; reopening this as a feature request to tweak the Windows installer. 👍

[just1a-person]

IMHO, the installer should ask whether to install for all users (admin) or only for current user (appdata local).

This shouldn't affect winget

[mislav]

@itsme-alan Could you elaborate?

[just1a-person]

@itsme-alan Could you elaborate?

winget users expect a silent installation. Ideally there should be a command-line argument for the msi to specify installation for all users or for the current user.

[mislav]

@itsme-alan That's a good point. I'm not familiar with how tools like Winget or Chocolatey run an MSI installer from a script. MSIs in graphical mode can ask the user to select an installation directory, for example. Does a headless run of an MSI just pick all the default options? Would a default option also be picked for user vs. admin install?

[leonard84]

@mislav

Does a headless run of an MSI just pick all the default options? Would a default option also be picked for user vs. admin install?

Normally you provide the switches in the install file, e.g., this manifest of 7zip for winget.
https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/blob/7d16c13710799937c94b663fb9adc6d23cbfd0e7/manifests/7Zip/7Zip/16.0.4.yaml

So it makes sense to provide a switch to target either all users or only the current user. If you can't decide on a reasonable default it is also acceptable to make it a required switch and fail if it started in non-interactive mode without the switch for the target.

[just1a-person]

You can pass arguments to the installer directly using winget cli.

[bl-ue]

Wow, there are a lot of 🚀s on the issue. 🤔

[cprima]

+1 for an easy way to get Git on the commandline in a restricted corporate environment. i.e. %APPDATA%.

There are thousands of developers who only understand Git by using a "3rd party GUI interface". As a result they are lacking some fundamental understandings of how Git works. Git commands get LOCALIZED in these GUIs!?!

With a solid way to install a CLI client one could start writing tutorials.

[JM-AlanSmith]

+1 for this too. Especially as the git-scm cli is there, as is Visual Studio Code and Python!

[mislav]

I've found some Wix documentation that sounds like it might address making a single MSI that covers both per-machine and per-user installation, but I have no experience with this. If someone wants to take a stab, our current Wix setup is here https://github.com/cli/cli/blob/trunk/build/windows/gh.wxs

[byjrack]

yup for winget it should align w the https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/settings#scope setting.

[byjrack]

Ironically came up again today and finally looked at the wix. Not only is it hard coded to Program Files which you can override with INSTALLDIR, but then it assumes it can write to HKLM so needs admin even if the install path isn't protected. May need to dust off my wix skills and see if I can make a control script that handles the User vs machine wide (+UI) and then still persist to the proper registry location.

[RobCannon]

It would be great if this could be fixed since the default way most Windows users are going to install this is via winget.

[RYRY1002]

+1 also.

Downloading the .zip, extracting it and putting it in a folder with PATH access is a pain as opposed to typing in a command in winget. This is especially frustrating considering that the .zip essentially contains a single file, gh.exe.