āFree and OpenSource never meant, that you can demand anything from the makers of that product, other than to be able to use their product freely.ā
While your definition of Free and Open Source is incorrect, what you describe is really all I am trying to do. Is the Nextcloud desktop client not Free and Open Source? Are there not community contributions to the desktop client? If so, this is not made clear on the Nextcloud website, as far as I have seen. If I am wrong please show me.
This combination screams BS
Go ahead, switch to OwnCloud!
Donāt forget to change your username when you come back, so you donāt look so stupid.
If you still have a job by then, that meansā¦
Stupid post. So youāre implying Iām lying? Why would I do that? I never claimed I had āOpen Source āexpertiseāā, but in our very small IT department they do consider me the *nix guru.
I am not the one who described open source software like free beer. That was budy.
News flash: not all government entities are rolling in cash and embracing every shiny new Microsoft product.
Hi, here is the msi installer request on the Nextcloud Desktop github page. I see you found it already @TrinityDan 
Simplest solution in your case could be to use the Owncloud msi client application with your Nextcloud server. I havenāt personally tested it, but I know others are using it for this reason.
Thanks for the suggestion just! I have done a little experimenting with the OwnCloud desktop client installer, and the only issue with it so far is the ugly red unsupported message on install. I do worry what issues may arise with future updates though.
I believe I may be getting closer to a working install of the Nextcloud desktop client through group policy, but wonāt be continuing testing until Monday.
Thank you for the constructive input. I think my posts rubbed some people the wrong way, and I will take some responsibility for that as I was pretty upset when I originally posted. I always appreciate community support.
As I said - congrats, well sort of of course - didnāt mean to mock youā¦ I know of enough organizations or business, that operate this way. As I said, this is all good, as long as you can tackle all the stuff needed alone.
And it is, itās just not every aspect of it and this is totally reasonable. A company like Nextcloud needs to make some money in the end, to keep their business up, donāt they? And the Extra MSI installer - itās just that, an extra. This doesnāt render NC closed source or un-free in any way. Itās something that you particularly want for your setup, but itās not necessary.
So, if you need an MSI installer, you do have basically three options now:
There are tools to create MSI installers for Windows. Just a simple query brought up dozens of pages, dealing with that - and itās nothing, youād need to be a *nix guru for.
It was one of the first features that were re-implemented by Nextcloud. Not sure if their community edition is then again inspired from Nextcloud. But for all this, I preferred to have a completely open solution and it is up to me to decide what I consider a ānice to haveā.
You can still fully decide when you update and upgrade (you have always full control over all versions like you do have on ownCloud). For the updater app the number of release channels was reduced (there is a different thread for that).
I would be careful. In the past, the clients were very similar and for some time it was only the branding. Recently there are more and more differences and if there are incompatibilities, nobody will fix it.
Other idea, you could use the webdav mount with other software. The direct windows support is not great, there is cyberduck or mountain duck (also netdrive) and one more. Perhaps they have cheaper suitable licences.
However, Iād prefer a solution of Nextcloud directly. Even in the community, if you donāt do it alone and find some others, it might be doable.
Free and open source in no way excludes the provision of extra services at cost. The NC client is free and open source and AFAIK is released and maintained in compliance with its licence. You can download the source and compile it as is, or modify it to suit your environment, or modify it and release your own version along with the modified source. Or build an MSI installer for the desktop client.
That Nextcloud GmbH creates an MSI only for its paying customers does not lessen the status of the NC code being free and open source. Itās a support function, added value work.
This topic is a touch stale but to help anyone searching on how to do this or for those that have their nickers in a twist on this topic, I thought Iād provide a little how-to on creating an .msi and deploying via group policy.
Iāve tested installing the Nextcloud Windows Client v2.6.4 setup program that has been wrapped in a .msi and deployed via Group Policy with success.
What I did was use the free exemsi software to run Nextcloud-2.6.4-setup.exe with the /S option for silent install. That produced the file Nextcloud-2.6.4-setup.msi.
NB: Iām not promoting exemsi just telling you the recipe that worked for me so use your preferred search engine to find them or similar tool.
Once I had the .msi file, I followed one of the numerous available tutorials on how to deploy software via group policy. TBH, the group policy deployment setup and troubleshooting took 90+% of my time. The trick for me was to 1) set a group policy to wait for the network to be available before processing GPOs and 2) set a group policy to delay GPO processing for 60s on boot.
The result was the new Nextcloud client installed and upgraded the existing installation of the Nextcloud client without issue. The exemsi also added a Nextcloud-exemsi entry in the install programs list next to the Nextcloud client entry. That is to say, there are installed program entries for the Nextcloud-2.6.4-setup.exe and for the Nextcloud-2.6.4-setup.msi.
I didnāt test uninstalling any of it. I also didnāt look for any ways to automate the configuration of the client.
I hope this helps anyone searching how to deploy the client more easily and at scale.
MSI for everyone: Nextcloud Desktop Client 3.1 is here with new conflict dialog, notification handling and sharing options