2.4.0.0 Did not install properly on Windows and lost all config

[kenkendk]

@Nosenko

The .msi ran and I selected the option to run it as a Windows service. As far as I can remember, this is how I’ve upgraded before. It completed with no errors.

The option to install as a service is new in 2.4.

When you run Duplicati as a Windows Service, you are running as a different user. This has a few effects, including:

• Ability to read locked files (VSS permissions are granted)
• Mounted network drives are not available (network drives belong to the user)
• Duplicati’s data folder is different (service has C:\ProgramData\Duplicati user has %LOCALAPPDATA%\Duplicati)

@Nosenko

But when I ran the browser page, it opened up to the old interface (which is my preference), but it stated that there are “No scheduled tasks.”

That’s not good. When I exited a few minutes earlier, (probably duplicati-2.3.0.4_stable_2026-07-09-win-x64-gui), it had told me that the next backup would be tomorrow.

This is because the service is using a different folder, C:\ProgramData\Duplicati, so there are no backups configured.

@Nosenko

Any clue why .NET would log that error to the Application log?

That is caused by loading the page without the correct token. It can happen in various ways but does not indicate an error as such. The other log entries you list are internal issues that are benign, but noisy and we should fix or silence them.

@Nosenko

Does anyone have a way to resurrect my install?

Two ways, depending on what you want:

1. Install without checking Windows Service
   Uninstall 2.4, then install again without checking the Windows Service checkbox.
   Duplicati will then run as it has done in the past, just starting up when you log in.
   You can delete the folder C:\ProgramData\Duplicati to clean up

2. Keep the service installation
   First, stop the service
   Then copy your data from the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Duplicati folder to C:\ProgramData\Duplicati
   Start a command prompt as Administrator
   Run the command:

"C:\Program Files\Duplicati 2\Duplicati.CommandLine.DatabaseTool.exe" secure-datafolder --server-datafolder=C:\ProgramData\Duplicati

Then restart the service.

You also need to go into each backup via the UI and edit the database path. We have fixed this for 2.4, but existing paths from 2.3 and before are not auto-fixed.