Install Cells on Windows

This guide shows how to install and run Pydio Cells on Windows 10.

The binary also work on other version of Windows Desktop (8, 11) and of the Windows Server. Yet, please note that due to the majority of UNIX-like boxes in the enterprise server world and also the lack of feedback from the community, the Windows version of our application might still have unknown glitches and is not officially suported.

Please feel free to join our community to improve this.

Install Cells on Windows 10

The only hard requirement is a recent MySQL database. If not yet present on your machine, you can refer to:

• MySQL 8.0
• MariaDB 10.4

You can then download the Pydio Cells executable from our download server.

Open a powershell terminal then proceed to install with the following command:

• .\cells.exe configure

Note: on Powershell, with legacy version of Cells or Windows, if the arrows keys do not seem to work, you can try with H-J-K-L (J: Up, K: Down).

Note: the legacy Windows Command Prompt, also known as CMD, which is the original shell for the Microsoft DOS operating system and has been the default until Windows 10 is known to have issues with the Go language command framework that we use to directly communicate with the server via terminal. On some version, it renders the Cells CLI completely unusable. TL;DR: use powershell.

At first prompt, you can choose how you want to go on with the installation:

• Browser based: opens a tab in your local browser with an intuitive installer.
• command line interface: for advanced users, pretty straight forward.

Once installed, you can find the application working folder with data, configurations and logs under %APPDATA%.
For instance: C:\Users\pydio\AppData\Roaming\Pydio\cells.

Note: you may have to explicitly allow displaying hidden files/folders in your settings to see this folder.

You can now start Cells and access it at https://localhost:8080 or https://<server ip or domain>:8080

.\cells.exe start

By default, Cells start on port 8080 with a self-signed certificate. To change this and use a different domain, port or protocol, run:

.\cells.exe configure sites

Troubleshooting

Error message when moving files (license, binary...)

You might encounter this message in the logs after performing actions like updating the license or upgrading to the latest version of the server via the in-app process:

Update successfully applied but previous binary could not be moved to backup folder     {"error": "remove C:\\<path to you binary file>\\cells-v3.0.9.exe: Access is denied."}

This is a known issue and non-blocking: the new file is correctly installed on its intended destination and the app will function normally.