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505443
Frequent Visitor

Power BI Desktop install error 'The installer has insufficient privileges to access this directory

I have previous a installation of Power BI Desktop (June 2017) on Windows Server 2012.  Am trying to install the updated version (April 2018) to now test the long awaited "Multi-select data points across multiple charts" functionality that had previously prevented us from using Power BI.

 

However the installer now fails with the error : "The installer has insufficient privileges to access this directory: ......"

 

We have encountered similar issue in the past with Qlik Sense installation, and its based on our roaming profiles.  For that fix we had to make a registry edit, changing the path of 'Personal' at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders (    See https://community.qlik.com/thread/153173).   The path is changed from the shared drive/roaming profile location to a C:drive location, and this lets the installation continue and complete successfully

 

It looks like a similar issue here.   I'm hoping the workaround is similar, to find the appropriate registry setting to edit, removing the default drive destination (based on roaming profile) and replacing with a physical c:drive location where permissions are OK

 

I've seen the error logged elsehwhere https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Power-BI-Desktop-installer-error-The-installer-has-insuffic... but the workaround there doesnt work for us on Win Server 2012 (that fix was for Win 10 by installing the app version of PDI Desktop).

 

Does anyone know what registry setting may be causing the issue, or had similar problems when installing in environments with roaming profiles?

thanks for reading

Stuart

 

 

 

 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
v-chuncz-msft
Community Support
Community Support

@505443,

 

Make sure you have full access to the directory and try to restart the server.

Community Support Team _ Sam Zha
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

View solution in original post

2 REPLIES 2
v-chuncz-msft
Community Support
Community Support

@505443,

 

Make sure you have full access to the directory and try to restart the server.

Community Support Team _ Sam Zha
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

Thanks for the feedback Sam.  Found that our IT department had to make an exception in permissions as by default no software was permitted to be installed onto the shared drive (roaming profiles) in order to limit network traffic.   That shared drive was causing the error with insufficient privileges at install.   I was able to work arond this with a similar error during a Qlik install by making a registry edit (as only used shared drive roaming profile to install samples), but with Power BI that workaround didnt succeed.   The only fix was a permission exemption.   

 

Look forward to now evaluating the 'Multi-select data points across multiple pages' from the Feb release that is the functionality that was previously missing and preventing us from considering to adopt Power BI

 

thanks

Stuart

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