Installing the Desktop App (2024)

If you just want to install the ownCloud Desktop App on your local system, you can simply download and launch the relevant .msi file and configure it in the wizard that pops up. For the examples below, the x64 installer is used.

Microsoft GPO (Group Policy Object) Installer

ownCloud provides two versions of the Microsoft Installer:

*.x64.msi: This is the installer for regular users. The installer UI has multiple translations to guide end users through the install procedure.
*.x64.GPO.msi: The GPO installer works better for automated deployments in managed environments. It is only available in English. The desktop client itself comes with all the usual languages for the user interface.

Features

The MSI installer provides several features that can be installed or removed individually, which you can also control via command-line, if you are automating the installation, then run the following command:

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi

The command will install the ownCloud Desktop App into the default location with the default features enabled. If you want to disable, e.g., desktop shortcut icons you can simply change the above command to the following:

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi REMOVE=DesktopShortcut

See the following table for a list of available features:

Feature	Enabled by default	Description	Property to disable.
Client	Yes, required	The actual client
DesktopShortcut	Yes	Adds a shortcut to the desktop.	`NO_DESKTOP_SHORTCUT`
StartMenuShortcuts	Yes	Adds shortcuts to the start menu.	`NO_START_MENU_SHORTCUTS`
ShellExtensions	Yes	Adds Explorer integration	`NO_SHELL_EXTENSIONS`

Installation

You can also choose to only install the Desktop App itself by using the following command:

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi ADDDEFAULT=Client

If you for instance want to install everything but the DesktopShortcut and the ShellExtensions feature, you have two possibilities:

You explicitly name all the features you actually want to install (whitelist) where Client is always installed anyway.
See Also
Owncloud vs. Nextcloud: Was ist besser?

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi ADDDEFAULT=StartMenuShortcuts

You pass the NO_DESKTOP_SHORTCUT and NO_SHELL_EXTENSIONS properties.

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi NO_DESKTOP_SHORTCUT="1"NO_SHELL_EXTENSIONS="1"

The ownCloud .msi file remembers these properties, so you don’t need to specify them on upgrades.

You cannot use these to change the installed features, if you want to do that, see the next section.

Changing Installed Features

You can change the installed features later by using REMOVE and ADDDEFAULT properties.

If you want to add the desktop shortcut later, run the following command:

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi ADDDEFAULT="DesktopShortcut"

If you want to remove it, simply run the following command:

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi REMOVE="DesktopShortcut"

Windows keeps track of the installed features and using REMOVE or ADDDEFAULT will only affect the mentioned features.

Compare REMOVE and ADDDEFAULT on the Windows Installer Guide.

You cannot specify REMOVE on initial installation as it will disable all features.

Installation Folder

You can adjust the installation folder by specifying the INSTALLDIR property like this.

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\Non Standard ownCloud Client Folder"

Be careful when using PowerShell instead of cmd.exe, it can be tricky to get the whitespace escaping right there. Specifying the INSTALLDIR like this only works on first installation, you cannot simply re-invoke the .msi with a different path. If you still need to change it, uninstall it first and reinstall it with the new path.

Disabling Automatic Updates

To disable automatic updates, you can pass the SKIPAUTOUPDATE property.

msiexec /passive /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi SKIPAUTOUPDATE="1"

Launch After Installation

To launch the Desktop App automatically after installation, you can pass the LAUNCH property.

msiexec /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi LAUNCH="1"

This option also removes the checkbox to let users decide if they want to launch the Desktop App for non-passive/quiet mode.

This option does not have any effect without GUI.

No Reboot After Installation

The ownCloud Desktop App schedules a reboot after installation to make sure the Explorer extension is correctly (un)loaded. If you’re taking care of the reboot yourself, you can set the REBOOT property.

msiexec /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress

This will make msiexec exit with error ERROR_SUCCESS_REBOOT_REQUIRED (3010).If your deployment tooling interprets this as an actual error and you want to avoid that, you may want to set the DO_NOT_SCHEDULE_REBOOT instead.

msiexec /i ownCloud-5.3.0.13987.x64.msi DO_NOT_SCHEDULE_REBOOT="1"

Define Your Own Synchronization Folder Icon

When setting up a new synchronization, ownCloud automatically assigns its icon to the synchronization folder for ease of identification. Though you can change this icon, it would be reverted back on next reboot to the ownCloud icon. Folder icon details are usually stored in the hidden desktop.ini file which is located inside the folder under scrutiny. To make a manually defined icon persistent, a small change in this desktop.ini file is necessary. See the following description to do so:

Make the desktop.ini visible because it is hidden by default:

	Open the Desktop app, click on the three dots and there on `Show in Explorer`.
	In the Explorer, go to the `View` tab
	and click on the `Options` icon.
	In `Folder Options` click on the `View` tab.
	In `Advanced Settings`, change the marked items.

Now, as the desktop.ini file is visible, add a setting to make an icon change persistent. To do so, open it with an editor.
- The current content may look like this:
  [.ShellClassInfo]IconResource=C:\Program Files\ownCloud\owncloud.exe,0[ViewState]Mode=Vid=FolderType=Generic
- Add the following to the current content at the bottom:
  [ownCloud]UpdateIcon=false
Make the dektop.ini file hidden again by undoing the Advanced Settings changes from the first step. After that, the desktop.ini file will be hidden again.
Finally apply any icon of your choice to the synchronization folder.