Cannot install on Windows Server (RDS FARM)

[erwanclx]

Hello,
I have an RDS Farm on which I want to install PassBolt for users, howerver i am unable to install it Add-AppxPackage due to infrastructure error (0x80073CF3). Is there any possibility to deploy it ?
If not, do you have an idea of a way to provide it on sessions ?

[scadra]

Hey @erwanclx,

We know that some user as some difficulties by using RDS Farm with the passbolt app. Did you try to install the msixbundle provided from the github or you are using sideloading ?

In case of sideloading, there is a tutorial here which explain how to deploy it using windows server.

Another solution, if you are allow can be to use the winget cli created by windows to install the app.

In any case 0x80073CF3 looks say :

It may be caused by the package already being installed on the target system, a package dependency not being found, or the package does not support the correct processor architecture.

Can you confirm :

• You do not have the application already installed
• You are using sideloading or msixbundle from git ?
• Which package from architecture are you using ?

[scadra]

A ticket PB-35226 has been created to track this topic

[felixlabrot]

It is not possible to install Windows Apps on Windows Server (not even with the installer downloaded from the Microsoft Store Website). When attempting to manually install the Passbolt MSIX-Bundle, it fails due to UWP dependencies not being shipped with Windows Server. One is the missing packages is Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.8. This can't be manually installed, as the MSIX installer is not provided from Microsoft.

[scadra]

https://github.com/passbolt/passbolt-windows/releases/tag/v1.4.0
You can download lab-passbolt-install-script-ps1.zip and install the PS1 script. Let me know if it solves your issue.

Regarding MSIX or MSIXBundle they come from the windows store and retrieved from winget

[felixlabrot]

This does work but it is really ugly to run a password manager as a Windows Store App instead of a real software. The performance is a pain and also it doesn't fully work. E.g. the clicking on a URL of an entry does nothing. In the browser version it opens the website. The installed software should be a real program and work like KeePass and definitely not be a crappy app.

[scadra]

@felixlabrot Thank you for your feedback. Our application is designed to work via the Microsoft Store, which typically handles missing dependencies automatically. We have adapted this behavior for RDS environments to support the community, even though this was not part of our initial plans.

Regarding performance issues, this is something we have never encountered before and are particularly interested in addressing. We are keen to identify the root cause and work on mitigating it. Any additional information about your environment or use case would be very helpful.

Finally, clicking on links is currently restricted due to a security model we implemented to prevent unwanted webviews from opening. This is already part of our roadmap to find a balanced solution.

We’d like to remind you that this solution is developed with the goal of helping the community as much as possible. Thank you for your understanding and support.

[scadra]

A ticket has been created for the investigation of to open browser when clicking on URIS : Github issue 15

[felixlabrot]

@scadra Performance of Windows Store Apps being significantly worse than real software isn't anything new or surprising. When using UWP there are so many things going on in the background and it has so many dependencies which are slow due to their app nature just adds up to a trash experience. This isn't dependent on the environment and just comes from the clunky nature of how an app is built.
There is no benefit in dependency handling in apps on RDS or Windows Server. It is much more complex to build this script as instead of just creating an installer as every other software does. You can also just write a software that doesn't have tons of dependencies. Also if you build on .NET then Windows automatically installs the framework uppon first launch.
Just have a look on KeePass. It has no dependencies and just comes with an easy to use installer and delivers some DLLs it needs with the installer. It has a straight forward experience that just works.
Also with Windows becoming more and more unstable and unusable it would be great to have a Linux client as well. There is no way to run an app in Linux. If it is a real program then WINE can be a totally simple solution. Or you can cross-compile (.NET is available for Linux; UWP never will be).
Basically you could also build on top of Visual C++, which is chosen very frequently as well due to it just having one single dependency which any installer can install automatically.
Based uppon the opinion of my coworker, who is a software developer, .NET would be the preferred way to develop a Windows application in 2024 due to it having one dependency which is automatically installed and updated by Windows itself in the background and the good performance and good language features in C#.
Also due to your app being already made in C# this would be a quite easy switch.

Regarding the URL clicks: if that openes in a Edge WebView then I would have to ditch Passbolt all together. Nobody uses that and it is the absolutely wrong way to do it and would never work properly. Instead it should open a new window or tab in the existing default browser. Forcing users to use Edge but with less featuers would be the worst.

So basically just throw out this UWP garbage and do a proper .NET application. This would work way better, better performance, better features, no pain with installing on Windows Server, no pain with older Windows versions (like Windows 7, which is still commonly used in the industrial environment) and you get the Linux version for free if you use a current Visual Studio.

Having a properly working real software would be the best for the community as there is 100% the need for a Linux version and maybe someone would even port this to Mac as Microsoft is going forward of supporting more platforms with their .NET and C# environment.

[stripthis]

So basically just throw out this UWP garbage and do a proper .NET application.

@felixlabrot please read our code of conduct: https://www.passbolt.com/terms/code-of-conduct . This is not a respectful way to communicate here.

[felixlabrot]

@stripthis It seems you are not in a mental condition to understand that those are facts on differences in technology and how they affect the end user just by working differently. You are a pain of a person who wants to restrict freedom of speech. Everyone can have any opinion on technology. My opinion is based on facts, testing and architectual analysis and opinions of professionals. If you are not capable of understanding this, then you maybe should cancel your internet service and life under a rock. You are free to have another opinion but you don't need to attack people with a different opinion.

From my side there will not be any further contribution, feedback, advise, bug reporting, feature requesting or anything else due to your inappropriate behaviour. I will ditch the use of Passbolt within our company and not recommend it to our customers because as of now it build on an unstable framework that is an absolute nightmare for administrators in terms of ability to distribute and update among a larger group of users and devices and does not and will never fully function and be a fully-featured in-place replacement for KeePass.

I will not read or react to any harrassment you might have for me in the future. I'm out of this conversation without any interest in ever looking back to this project.

[user18081972]

UWP, more like universal windows poop