Provide non-admin mode from the Windows installer

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!

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

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 👍

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.

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

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

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

This shouldn't affect winget

@itsme-alan

@itsme-alan Could you elaborate?

@itsme-alan

@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.

+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.

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

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

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

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.

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

+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.

Would love to see this fixed. We work in restricted environments all the time and having the option to install on a user-level is a necessity.

Would be nice to support that using winget / installer.

I'm surprised this issue takes so long to fix. Anyway, I just threw together a PowerShell function to install the latest amd64 gh.exe binary for the current user without requiring elevation. Seems to work pretty well, so I thought I'd share it with others in case they want to give it a go. Here's the function, you should just be able to drop it into your profile script and then use it to install or update, as long as they don't change the way they're posting these too much.

function Install-GitHubCli {
    # Create .gh folder if it doesn't exist
    $userProfileFolder = [Environment]::GetFolderPath('UserProfile')
    $ghFolder = Join-Path -Path $userProfileFolder -ChildPath '.gh'
    if (-not (Test-Path -LiteralPath $ghFolder)) {
        New-Item -Path $ghFolder -ItemType Directory > $null
    }

    # Get the main releases page HTML
    $releasesUrl = 'https://github.com/cli/cli/releases'
    $releasesHtml = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $releasesUrl -UseBasicParsing

    # Identify the latest version using the first release link
    if ($releasesHtml.Content -notmatch '/cli/cli/releases/tag/(?<Version>[^"]+)') {
        Write-Error -Message 'No release link found.'
        return
    }

    $version = $matches['Version']

    # Download the zip file
    $downloadUrl = "https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/download/${version}/gh_$($version -replace '^v')_windows_amd64.zip"
    $zipFileName = "gh_${version}_windows_amd64.zip"
    $zipPath = Join-Path -Path $env:TEMP -ChildPath $zipFileName
    Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $downloadUrl -OutFile $zipPath

    # Extract gh.exe using Expand-Archive
    Expand-Archive -LiteralPath $zipPath -DestinationPath $ghFolder -Force

    # Clean up
    Remove-Item -LiteralPath $zipPath

    # Add to environment PATH for the current process and future processes via a user environment setting update if the path is not already present
    $currentPath = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Process)
    $ghExeFolder = Join-Path -Path $ghFolder -ChildPath 'bin'
    if ($currentPath.Split(';') -notcontains $ghExeFolder) {
        ${env:Path} = "${currentPath};${ghExeFolder}"
        [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', ${env:Path}, [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Process)
        [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', ${env:Path}, [EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)
    }

    Write-Output "gh.exe installed to ${ghFolder} and ${ghExeFolder} added to PATH."
}

@KirkMunroSagent

Following up on this. While @KirkMunroSagent provided a nice reply, it'll be nice to have this built-in.

Has there been any progress on this feature request?

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Provide non-admin mode from the Windows installer #1740

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