Windows client installer doesn't install anything

[smare]

I just purchased a PRO subscription and have been trying to install the Windows client for about an hour now. Regardless of installation method nothing is ever actually installed on my system. The installers appear to execute without issue, but no files are transferred or configurations performed.

I'm running Windows 10 Pro Build 19640 (Windows Insider Fast Ring) on a Lenovo T580.

I began as I imagine most new Windows subscribers would, going here which is linked from the home page; then clicking the icon for the Windows Desktop App which downloads RaindropInstaller.exe. Double-clicking RaindropInstaller.exe (both as a regular user and right-clicking to "Run as Administrator") resulted in the following small popup that quickly disappeared: The process seemed to end successfully (that is, no errors displayed) but nothing was installed.

I then tried running RaindropInstaller.exe both from the Windows command line and Powershell, again as both a regular user an administrator. Same results as double-clicking and no output to the console, so no way to debug.

Next I tried downloading the installer directly from Raindrop.io's Github repo and tried to install it the same ways as the previous installer, but I had the same results - popup image was displayed and nothing was installed.

Finally I tried to build the client by installing Yarn and cloning github.com/raindropio/desktop.git. I switched to the cloned directory .\desktop and ran yarn deploy_prod, which immediately exited with the following error (presumably because I don't have git push permissions on this repo:

PS C:\dev\projects\github-projects> git clone https://github.com/raindropio/desktop.git
Cloning into 'desktop'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 26, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (26/26), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (17/17), done.
remote: Total 190 (delta 15), reused 20 (delta 9), pack-reused 164
Receiving objects: 100% (190/190), 6.52 MiB | 28.54 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (86/86), done.
PS C:\dev\projects\github-projects> cd .\desktop\
PS C:\dev\projects\github-projects\desktop> yarn deploy_prod
yarn run v1.22.4
$ git branch -f release/production master && git push --force origin release/production
Username for 'https://github.com': smare
Password for 'https://[email protected]':
remote: Permission to raindropio/desktop.git denied to smare.
[hl]fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/raindropio/desktop.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403[/hl]
error Command failed with exit code 128.
info Visit https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/cli/run for documentation about this command.
PS C:\dev\projects\github-projects\desktop>

Seems like there is an issue in windows.yml, why would the installation client need to push to Github before building?

I'm not a Yarn expert but I tried manually installing the dependencies by running install dependencies (skipping the on: attribute in windows.yml) but many of the packages failed to install (or installed with warnings) because they were 32-bit. Finally I even tried manually running npx electron-forge publish --platform=win32 but that too failed in spectacular fashion. I don't have the error output because I stopped copying the error messages when I realized that nothing was going to work until windows.yml was fixed.

I'm really disappointed in this purchase. I haven't imported my bookmarks yet because I was trying to use the Windows client, so I really hope the browser extension has all the same functionality as the client. I'n regretting this purchase because:

• the Raindrop.io Windows client is impossible for an average user to install
• there is no documentation for the Windows client
• I got laid off because of COVID-19 and I spent money on something that's broken

I really hope I'm just doing something wrong, I would love for this solution to bookmarking to work for me. Unfortunately I can't even RTFM for it because it doesn't seem to exist.

[exentrich]

Hello! Sorry for delay. Seems like problem happen because of Insider preview version of Windows, it's unstable by nature. Try to run this commands inside of folder:

yarn
yarn local

Then check "out" folder

[smare]

1. That still doesn't address the fact that there's no documentation
2. I tried installing the Windows client on my desktop PC which is running "normal" Windows Pro (not "Windows Insider builds") like a typical Windows user would
3. I ran the yarn commands but no difference. Like I mentioned, I'm no yarn expert it seems like there is an issue in windows.yml, why would the installation client need to push to Github before building? Can you explain that?

[exentrich]

This Github repo specifically created for developers who want to help with improving app. It is not intended for users. Try downloading app from here https://raindrop.io/r/app/windows and install it in your "normal" Windows Pro, it should work. Windows Insider builds are not officially supported, sorry.

windows.yml file used in Github Actions. Github besides hosting code actually builds a binaries that we distribute.