Please allow installation of DevPod Windows UI without requiring local admin privileges

[kdandersen]

Please allow DevPod to be installed in users App\Local or similar location, not requiring local admin privileges or elevation on Windows.

[pascalbreuninger]

Hi @kdandersen, thank you for opening the issue. We looked into the topic a while ago but tbh it's not very high up on the priority list.
You can try to work around it using msiexec, see our slack channel for more information on that

[kdandersen]

Hmm,

Gave it a try with command:

msiexec /i "DevPod_windows_x64_en-US.msi" ALLUSERS="" INSTALLDIR=%LOCALAPPDATA%/Programs/DevPod

But still required elevation.

Anyhow, thanks for suggesting.

Rgds

[philippe-granet]

@pascalbreuninger same problem, many companies impose restrictions on their PC and disable local admin privileges or elevation on Windows for security reasons.
It's my case, and I can't test devpod :(

[philippe-granet]

I found a work around.
Extract the msi: msiexec /a DevPod_windows_x64_en-US.msi /qb TARGETDIR=c:\devpod
Then you find DevPod.exe in C:\devpod\PFiles\DevPod and can launch it without local admin privileges or elevation

[kdandersen]

Hi @philippe-granet

You workaround works! 👍

Thanks for sharing

[gbonnefille]

If so, what about releasing the .exe alone, near to the .msi?
I'm not so sure where the .exe is before releasing it.

devpod/.github/workflows/release.yaml

Line 307 in 8417972

const releaseAssets = [{ name: msiName, path: msiPath }, { name: cliName, path: cliPath }, { name: msiZipName, path: msiZipPath }, { name: msiZipSigName, path: msiZipSigPath }]

[gbonnefille]

Please, note that Rancher Desktop has an installer proposing a User install. But I fear it is a completely different packager.

[pascalbreuninger]

@gbonnefille I fear if we just release the .exe file it will be more confusing to figure out which file to download and I'm not sure if the signing will still work without the msi.
Long-term we should adjust the installer to allow for user installs

[gbonnefille]

I certainly misunderstood something, but the .exe I found in the Releases is the cli only.

In order to have a GUI running, I had to disassemble the .msi and run the Path executable.

[pascalbreuninger]

Yes you got that right, I thought you want to release the GUI .exe alongside the .msi

[natescherer]

For anyone who comes across this, I've expanded on @philippe-granet 's solution to create a block of Windows PowerShell that will handle the installation under your user's profile, as well as adding DevPod.exe and devpod-cli.exe to the user PATH, creating a Start Menu shortcut, and setting up DevPod to run at Startup:

# Install DevPod
New-Item -Path "$env:TEMP\devpod" -ItemType Directory
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod/releases/latest/download/DevPod_windows_x64_en-US.msi" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\devpod\devpod.msi"
Start-Process msiexec -NoNewWindow -Wait -ArgumentList "/a","$env:TEMP\devpod\devpod.msi","/qb","TARGETDIR=`"$env:TEMP\devpod\extracted`""
Copy-Item -Recurse -Path "$env:TEMP\devpod\extracted\PFiles\DevPod" -Destination "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall" -Force
Remove-Item -Recurse -Path "$env:TEMP\devpod" -Force
# Add 'devpod' and 'devpod-cli' to user PATH
if ($env:PATH -notlike "*$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall*") {$env:PATH += ";$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall";[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:PATH, [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)}
# Create Start Menu Shortcut
New-Item -Path "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall" -ItemType Directory
$Shell = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $Shell.CreateShortcut("$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall\DevPod.lnk")
$Shortcut.TargetPath = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall\devpod.exe"
$Shortcut.Save()
# Set to run on Startup
Copy-Item -Recurse -Path "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\DevPod-ManualInstall\DevPod.lnk" -Destination "$env:APPDATA\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\" -Force

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open for 60 days with no activity.