3.1. Perform interactive installation (User interaction is needed)

3.1.1.  Copy the agent installer to the system (or to a network file location accessible from the system.)

3.1.2. Double-click on the installer to begin the installation. 

3.1.3. Click Next to begin the agent installation.

3.1.4. Accept the license agreement and click Next.

3.1.5. Specify the installation directory for the agent. (Typically, you will accept the default value.) Click Next to continue,

Note: The agent needs space for index and hash files in the installation directory. Normally, the required space is approx. 500KB for each TB of total disk size for every volume in the system (plus space for log files, etc.)  

If your C: drive is tightly constrained on free space, you may wish to install the agent onto another drive with more space available.

3.1.6. Select the agent installation mode (either Direct-to-Cloud mode or Appliance mode) and click Next to continue.

3.1.7. You will now install the agent, using either Direct-to-Cloud mode or Appliance mode.

Direct-to-Cloud installation

If you have selected to install the agent in Direct-to-Cloud mode, enter the TokenID value for the client and vault being configured. 

Note: When you are installing using a client-specific Direct-to-Cloud agent, the appliance IP field will be greyed out. The vault address will be automatically retrieved, based on the token ID you provided in the agent installer filename.

Click Next to continue,

Appliance mode installation

(NOTE: Additional licenses may be required for appliances)

3.1.7.a. (Required step) Enter the appliance IP address

Note: Enabling the System Tray Application will display an agent-monitoring application to the user in the Windows System Tray. For further details see: (Windows) Systray Monitor Utility - x360Recover

3.1.7.b  Optional step: You may choose to assign an appliance access control password to this agent. 

Enter the password twice in the fields provided to confirm you typed it correctly.

IMPORTANT: If you choose to enter an optional password, the specified password will be required every time you wish to access the backup data on this protected system. This means you will need to provide the password when you perform any data recovery, when you make agent configuration changes using the application UI, and when you delete the protected system or any of its snapshots.  

Note:  If you later decide to add, change, or remove this optional password, you can do so using a Powershell script located in the agent installation folder. For instructions, see Change or reset an agent access control password

3.1.7.c.  Optional step: You may specify a limited set of disk volumes to be backed up.  

• By default, this value is left blank, indicating that all supported volumes are to be included in the backup.

Note:  Volumes which are always excluded (by default) from backup include:

• Volumes using incompatible filesystems, like FAT or ReFS
• Volumes being used by the agent for Local Cache
• Nested volumes (such as a VHDX file on C: mounted as C:\VMDisk; The mount point will be excluded, because Microsoft VSS cannot snapshot both the mount point and the physical disk image file in the same dataset.)

3.1.7.d. Optional step: Enable the Systray Agent Monitor Utility

Enabling the System Tray Application will display an agent-monitoring application to the user in the Windows System Tray. For further details see: (Windows) Systray Monitor Utility - x360Recover

3.1.8. When you have completed all desired fields, click Install.

3.1.9. Click Finish to close the installer.

3.2 Perform silent agent installation (For mass deployment using scripting or RMM)

REQUIRED parameters for silent install

The x360Recover agent supports a set of command-line parameters for performing a silent install during mass agent deployment using scripting or RMM tools.

The presence of one of these parameters implies that the agent will be installed silently, with no user interaction.

• One of these two parameters is REQUIRED
• Only ONE may be specified

The agent understands the following parameters:

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Agent 2.x for Windows is a Microsoft Installer (MSI) installer package. Deploying an MSI package from the command line utilizes the MSIEXEC command, for example:

msiexec agentSetup.msi SERVER=192.168.90.20 ENABLE_SYSTRAY=true

Agent 3.x for Windows is an executable (EXE) installer package. Deploying an EXE installation package simply requires executing the installer from the command line, for example:

xcloud-agent_arm64.exe /SERVER=192.168.90.201 /ENABLE_SYSTRAY=true

Note that MSI and EXE packages have slightly different formats for passing command line parameters

Optional parameters

Notes on local cache: 

• Local cache should only be used when deploying in Direct-to-Cloud mode.  (It serves no purpose in local appliance mode.)
• The local cache path must be specified as a local drive path when using locally-attached storage, such as a USB disk.
  For example: LCPATH=Q:\LocalCache
• IMPORTANT: The local cache path CANNOT BE specified as a local drive path when using network storage. You must use UNC path nomenclature, like ‘\\<Server>\<Share Name>\<Folder Name>’ etc. Network shares mounted to a drive letter in the user environment are not accessible to the agent services, so the agent needs to know where the actual shared folder exists on the network.
   

Perform a silent installation of the agent

Important: Always use the generic agentInstaller.msi package or xcloud-agent.exe file when performing command-line installation. Do not use the client-specific agent installer package. (The tokenid parameter present within the agent installer filename will override any command-line SERVER or TOKENID value passed when executed.)
 
Note: If you have downloaded the client-specific agent installer package, simply rename it (i.e. to 'agentInstaller.msi' etc.) to remove the token and client information from the installer before deploying.

STEP 1. Launch the agent installer from the command-line, either
 (a) directly inside a Windows CMD.exe shell, or 
(b) via scripting run via Group Policy or via RMM management utilities.

The 2.x agent uses Microsoft Installer:

The 3.x agent uses an executable Installer:

STEP 2. Deploying in Direct-to-Cloud mode looks something like this on the managed system:

STEP 3. You may also include other command-line options (such as PASSWORD) to set the agent password/ passphrase, etc.

Or for defining local cache parameters.

Note: To completely hide the Agent 2.x installation in the background, include the ‘/q’ option.  Omitting ‘/q’ with msiexec will display the installation progress window during installation.

Agent 3.x is fully silent in the background whenever you provide /SERVER or /TOKENID parameters.

Managing the Systray Agent Monitor Utility

Configuration of the Systray Agent Monitor Utility can be managed on existing agent deployments using the agent installer. 

To mass enable or disable the presence of the systray utility on the protected system with Agent 2.x for Windows, you can use the agentSetup.msi installer package and redeploy the agent with the ENABLE_SYSTRAY=<true|false> parameter.

Using your RMM or other tools, issue the installer command 

msiexec /i AgentInstaller.msi /q ENABLE_SYSTRAY=[true|false] 

For both 2.x and 3.x agent installations, you may configure the Systray parameter from the Agent Settings tool on the Vault or Appliance protected system details page