Troubleshooting your DeskDirector Portal installation

This documentation is outdated as we no longer provide an auto-updating client, so many of these tips are not applicable. We're keeping this document just in case people are still running old versions.

Here are the main issues that you may run into with the DeskDirector Portal, and how to solve them:

Ran MSI and did nothing.

The MSI won't show anything until you log out and then log back in. This is when you will see the new portal appear.

Downloaded EXE, uninstalled it and then installed MSI. Now it isn't installing anything.

When you download the EXE, it will create a folder under C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\deskdirectorportal . When the EXE is uninstalled it will clear the folder but not delete the contents. The MSI then looks to see if the folder exists, if it does, it assumes the portal has already been installed. You must delete this folder manually to get the MSI to run and install DDPortal again.

Ran the MSI logged out and logged back in and it still did nothing

There are two possible causes to this problem:

  1. The MSI does not fire the executable file stored inside "Program Files (x86)\yourDDPortalName\" or "Program Files\yourDDPortalName\".
  2. The MSI locates the exe inside program files, installs the program, but then cannot detect any of the files inside "%AppData%\Local\deskdirectorportal\app-1.x.x". It then cannot create any shortcuts for the end user or allow the user to execute the program.

For the second case, this is caused when after having installed the client successfully, you decide to uninstall the program but leave the MSI installer intact. When the program has been uninstalled, not all of the folders get cleaned up correctly by the uninstall process (especially in particular the folder "%AppData%\Local\deskdirectorportal" may still exist). If this is the case, even if the folder itself is empty, make sure that the folder has been removed entirely and then log out and log back in. The MSI should retrigger the installation process.

I want to uninstall and then reinstall DD Portal

You should not ever have to uninstall and then reinstall DD Portal. The portal in itself handles updates automatically so you will never have to uninstall a previous instance of DD Portal to update it to a newer installer.

If you have understood this and still need to remove and reinstall DD Portal, please make sure you follow these instructions exactly:

  1. Uninstall the application itself (via add or remove programs)
  2. Uninstall the MSI if you used the machine wide installer
  3. Ensure that the following folder has been removed: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSP DDPortal (or something like that, it will be named and specifically branded for your company)
  4. Ensure that this folder is completely removed: %Appdata%\Local\deskdirectorportal
  5. Ensure that this folder is completely removed: %Appdata%\roaming\DeskDirector Portal

Is there a way to automate the above?

We have been provided with a VBScript which automates steps 3-5 for all users on the machine and ensures that DDPortal has been removed cleanly for any users who have uninstalled DDPortal. This can be automated further by including in tandem another script that checks to see if the user has uninstalled DDPortal.

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set output = WScript.Stdout

On Error Resume Next

Set colUsers = objFSO.GetFolder("C:\Users").Subfolders

For Each folder in colUsers

If objFSO.FileExists(folder.Path & "\AppData\Local\DeskDirectorPortal\.dead") Then

output.writeline "Applying fix"

Set objDDFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(folder.Path & "\AppData\Local\DeskDirectorPortal")

objDDFolder.Delete()

End If

Next

Note: Credit for this script is given to one of our partners Air-IT based in the UK.

How did we do?

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