Install Stuck on Windows

[DullahanDigital]

Windows installer stuck at 29% — sudo prompt receives no input

Platform: Windows 11 (native, no WSL)
Version: v0.3.5 (latest)

What happens

The GUI installer hangs at 29% (Step 2/7: Setting up package manager). The embedded terminal shows:

→ sudo is needed ONLY to install optional system packages (ripgrep ffmpeg) via your package manager.
→ Hermes Agent itself does not require or retain root access.
Install ripgrep for faster file search ffmpeg for TTS voice messages? [Y/n]

The prompt never receives input and the installer never progresses. This affects both normal and administrator-elevated launches.

Root cause

The Electron app is spawning the Unix install.sh script through bash on Windows. The interactive Y/n prompt for ripgrep/ffmpeg has no stdin available through the Electron IPC pipe, so it hangs indefinitely waiting for input that can never arrive.

Steps to reproduce

1. Download Hermes.Desktop.Setup.x.x.x.exe from the releases page
2. Run the installer (with or without admin)
3. On first launch, choose local install
4. Observe hang at 29%

Expected behavior

Installer completes without requiring interactive input, or skips optional packages on Windows.

Notes

I can see there is already a fix merged to main (fix: install Hermes natively on Windows — use PowerShell installer on win32 instead of bash) but it does not appear to be included in v0.3.5. This issue is a duplicate of #26. Requesting a patch release.

[lollo78]

Same for me. It stucks on a lot of steps (also forcing the deps installation from WSL).

[yogeshhpatel007-star]

I was able to fix this by running these commands and launching the Hermes Agent again.

1. Install Ubuntu from windows command prompt.
2. After instllation complets it will ask you to setup username and password.
3. Install all the dependencies manually.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y curl build-essential git
sudo apt install -y ripgrep ffmpeg
sudo apt install -y build-essential python3-dev libffi-dev

5. Launch Hermes Agent and it should work.
   But now getting this error when trying to chat with the agent.

Error: spawn C:\Users\user.hermes\hermes-agent\venv\bin\python ENOENT
Error: Hermes exited with code -4058. Check your model configuration and API key.

[destewon]

same error here:

Error: spawn C:\Users\user.hermes\hermes-agent\venv\bin\python ENOENT
Error: Hermes exited with code -4058. Check your model configuration and API key.

[lollo78]

Error: spawn C:\Users\user.hermes\hermes-agent\venv\bin\python ENOENT Error: Hermes exited with code -4058. Check your model configuration and API key.

Exactly. Same for me after installing all the dependencies manually.

[ngdzu]

Other people seems to be stuck at different point. But I'm stuck at exactly 29%. How could this ever work? Are we missing something?

[garylemasson]

my install is now correct but I get an error when i try to chat with gemma4 with ollama :

Error: spawn C:\Users\user.hermes\hermes-agent\venv\bin\python ENOENT
Error: Hermes exited with code -4058. Check your model configuration and API key.

[ngdzu]

Were you stuck at 29% but then somehow managed to install hermes agent?

[garylemasson]

i did install the depedencies via :
sudo apt install -y curl build-essential git
sudo apt install -y ripgrep ffmpeg
sudo apt install -y build-essential python3-dev libffi-dev

then it started but i cannot chat with my model

[ngdzu]

I'm able to fix it in https://github.com/fathah/hermes-desktop/blob/main/src/main/installer.ts
Basically, use "setsid"

so the command to install hermes agent is:
"curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | setsid bash -s -- --skip-setup"
Notice "setsid" in front of bash.

It will essentially skip ripgrep and ffmeg. User has to install them manually.

[pmos69]

Thanks everyone for the reports and workarounds here. The setsid workaround in the last comment was valid for the old failure mode, but the final fix landed through a different Windows-specific path.

Current releases no longer run the Unix install.sh | bash installer on Windows. Windows now uses the upstream PowerShell installer (install.ps1) and Desktop has Windows-aware Hermes home / venv handling, including %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes and venv\Scripts\python.exe / hermes.exe. The fix commit is included in the latest release (v0.5.1).

I’m going to close this as fixed/superseded by the newer installer implementation. If anyone can still reproduce the Windows install hang on v0.5.1 or later, please open a fresh issue with the version number and installer log so we can track the current behavior cleanly.