Deploying and updating clients

Updating clients to a new version

After the initial download of the clients to the client_deployment directory of the Server Maintenance Folder, the server will NOT automatically update the client if a new version is released by PowerFolder, except if the client installation packages are deleted and the service restarted. During runtime the clients in the client_deployment directory have to be updated manually whenever a new version should be deployed to the user's devices.

 Please take care you download the Generic Client version when updating the clients on the PowerFolder Server. The clients connecting to our public cloud don't offer to enter the URL to your server! 

Download links to the latest Generic Clients:

• Windows Installer (.exe)
• Windows Installer (.msi / 64-bit)
• Mac Package (.dmg)
• Linux Package (.tar.gz)
• Linux Package (.deb / amd64)
• Linux Package (.rpm / x86_64)

Notifying clients about a new version

Once you've updated the clients in the client_deployment directory, they will be available for download on your web interface. However existing clients will not detect automatically that there is a new version yet.  This can be useful if you want to start with a slow rollout making the updated clients only available for new users.

If you want to have all existing clients to detect the new version, you need to edit the PowerFolderPro_LatestVersion.txt in the client_deployment directory and set the version number to the number of the updated clients.

 Next time one of the existing clients start, it will compare the installed version to the version mentioned in the PowerFolderPro_LatestVersion.txt and will offer the updated version to the user.

Deploying on Windows with the .exe installer using silent mode

The Windows client installer supports some command line options to make it easier to deploy it with batch scripts or package deployment tools:

/NORUN - Don't start program after setup is done.
/NOJAVA - Don't check for and download JRE automatically.
/KERBEROS - Enables Kerberos authentication support.
/S - Run installer silent, required for all options below:
/NODESKTOP - Don't create desktop shortcuts.
/NOQUICKLAUNCH - Don't create quicklaunch shortcuts.
/NOSTARTUP - Don't start PowerFolder automatically when Windows starts. 
/NOSHELL - Don't create shell enhancements.
/SERVERURL - Setup PowerFolder to connect to the given server URL.

 Silent uninstall can be performed by executing the uninstall.exe in installation directory with the command line /S.

Deploying on Windows using MSI

The MSI package is provided to support automated installation via command line, Active Directory or software deployment/packing solutions. As such, it does not feature a GUI, but can be customized using standard mechanisms like msiexec or transforms. Administrators can use Orca to inspect the MSI package, edit values and create transforms.

By default, all features with a level of 1 will be installed. Windows Installer allows to override this behaviour in the following ways:

• The INSTALLDIR property is used to customize the directory where the main files (PowerFolder.exe, jar etc.) will be placed.
• The LANG property determines the language of the installed shell extensions. For possible values see Language Identifier Constants and Strings. The default value is provided by GetSystemDefaultLanguageID.
• The INSTALLLEVEL property can be set manually. All features with a level lower than INSTALLLEVEL will be installed.
• The ADDLOCAL property allows specifying features to be installed by their name.
• The REMOVE property names features to be removed.

With the MSI installer the folder base path can be set during the interactive installation process. The installer proposes the folder base path already set in the registry. If no folder path was set the installer proposes the default path $HOME/PowerFolders.

It is also possible to set the parameter via command line parameter:

msiexec /i installer.msi FOLDERBASEPATH=C:\test

The installation can also be done completely silent (requires console with administrator privileges):

msiexec /i installer.msi /qn FOLDERBASEPATH=C:\test

During installation, the folder base path is written to the registry of the local user (foldersbase). A second key (foldersbase.overwrite) is also written to the registry and set to true. At the next start of the PowerFolder client the folder base path is read from the registry and the overwrite flag set to false. From this point on all changes to the folder base path are controlled by the client and automatically synced to the registry.

Examples