9.0.4 installation woes - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2025, 07:35:28 pm
content: I decided to give it a try, downloaded the 9.0.4 install. Running Win 11.I think the installer defaults to some horrid path in appdata, is that true? I didn't take notes as I didn't expect anything to go wrong, so I entered a perfectly normal, to me, path of "C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0"So after the installer went through all the motions and put the shortcuts in favorites, it turns out nothing at all was installed. There is no such folder. The registry is filled with keys referring to this path however.Running the installer again just seems to get me a "choose components" dialog.Trying to run remove programs in Win11 gets me an error.So I can't uninstall it since it's never been installed so even the uninstaller isn't there. And I can't reinstall it because it thinks it's already installed and just lets me "choose components", which aren't there anyway...What did I do wrong?

author: MAS3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2025, 08:25:22 pm
content: Mine is indeed (without any interaction of mine) installed at C:\Program Files\KiCad\9.0, and is working correctly.Has been installed for a while (march 31 this year).Windows 11 Pro, 24H2.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 01:34:45 am
content: I went ahead and manually removed all the KiCad keys in the registry. Running the installer again and it goes through the motions, and I wasn't dreaming, see pic.This isn't where I expected, or want, application executables to install, or am I just too old to get it?Win 11 Pro 24H2 as well...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 01:38:44 am
content: Your first screenshot shows the issue: You've selected "For me" - at that point, the installer proceeds without elevating permissions to write to a system directory. You need to pick the other option.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 04:12:50 am
content: Going around an obstacle is one thing, the other is having the right mental image of what is going on. Here it is.“C:\Program Flies” is a system-wide installation directory. Programs installed there are available to all users in the system. As such, only a privileged user (e.g. administrator) may modify contents of “C:\Program Files”. Since you are running the installer as a normal user, you don’t have such rights. You can only control your own user’s stuff and need to point the installer to a location accessible to your user. Most likely this is going to be “AppData\Local\Programs” in your home directory (typically “C:\Users\YOUR_USER”). So the full path may be something like “C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Local\Programs\kicad-9.0.4”.Nonetheless, what you experienced is a symptom of multiple bugs in the installer. For a per-user install it should’ve offered you a different path. And upon the failure it should at least clearly indicate that an error occured. I see that when in 2023 KiCad was adding the per-user install option, Mark Roszko made a remark on having to patch the script they rely on.(1)No idea, how that affects the issue: neither I know Nullsoft’s installer, nor I can test it.Disclaimer: the paths are actually more complicated than that, and they may be very different depending on multiple factors. For the sake of clarity, the post describes the baseline situation most users face.(1)KiCad GitLab, packaging/kicad-win-builder @9fe0f26c, “/nsis/install.nsi”, line 51

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 04:17:54 am
content: If I got it right, Windows puts apps that for everyone into the \Program Files\ folder, and apps just for you go into \Users\your user name\AppData\Local\Programs.

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 06:40:50 am
content: As for the motivation behind this: I suspect it will be because of Kicad users on locked-down (domain-joined) windows PCs. This makes their lives a lot simpler, especially for updating Kicad.

author: MAS3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 10:12:45 am
content: As already pointed out by the other respondents, this is the difference between your installation and mine.As i'm the only user, i picked choice "everyone" during install (i'm not sure what the installer defaults to).

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2025, 10:32:46 am
content: Quote from: Whales on September 30, 2025, 06:40:50 amThat sounds a bit like it was an unusual scenario or something specific to Windows.I would not associate this with Windows’ features. This system always(1)offered suitable mechanisms to deploy software. In this matter did not and does not differ from other platforms. And, equally, similar issues exist on other popular systems, if only the technical aspect is considered.This is more a cultural thing. It does disproportionally affect Windows, but only because Microsoft gathered a particular audience. Whatever shortcomings Windows has, this is not something it can be “blamed” for as a software product. Or by which it could be singled out from other systems.(1)Not sure about the NT line up to version 4, but that wouldn’t also be relevant to personal computers.