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@TrevTV
Last active May 29, 2024 19:18
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Guide to installing Arc Browser on Windows 10

As this is not an official way of installing Arc, if you encounter any issues do NOT report them to the developers, they did not intend for people to be running Arc on Windows 10.

This guide is a bit more manual since I wanted to respect the developers' wishes and not directly link any downloads to the beta of Arc.

I don't know how this will work with updates, you may just need to redo the process to update it, but I'm not sure

  1. Install this font: https://aka.ms/SegoeFluentIcons (this fixes the icons since Windows 10 doesn't have this font installed by default)
  2. Download the Arc appinstaller and open it in notepad/some other text editor
  3. Copy everything inside and paste it into this website: https://codebeautify.org/xmlviewer (this is optional, but it makes reading and copying from the file easier)
  4. Find the mainpackage @Uri, it should end in Arc.x64.msix, and open that in a new tab. It should download that msix file.
  5. Scrolling down a bit more, there should be two dependencies with their own @Uris, download them both and install them as normal (double click, press install)
  6. Open the Arc msix with 7-Zip or WinRAR (others will probably work, but those are the two I've tested)
  7. Extract everything inside the folder to where you want the app to be installed

Technically, these next instructions aren't required, however it makes Windows actually recognize it as an app and probably prevents some weird bugs

  1. Open Settings, go into Update & Security, then For Developers, and toggle Developer Mode, you'll get a confirmation window, press Yes
  2. In the newly extracted files, find AppxManifest.xml and open it in notepad/some other text editor
  3. Open the Find and Replace menu (Ctrl + H or Edit->Replace for notepad), for Find what: put 10.0.22000.0, and for Replace with: put 10.0.10000.1000, then press Replace and save the file.
  4. Open Powershell (from the start menu usually), then type the following commands.
cd "[PATH TO YOUR ARC FILES HERE]"
Add-AppxPackage -Register ".\AppxManifest.xml"
  1. Optionally, disable Developer Mode using the same steps as step 8.

Now you should be able to see Arc in your start menu and have it function as normal

@anschmieg
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I found another way to install

  1. Open Registry Editor
  2. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
  3. Set UBR to ffffffff. (remember the original value and change it back after the installation is complete)
  4. Install arc with Arc.appinstaller (download link: https://releases.arc.net/windows/Arc.appinstaller)
  5. Set UBR to original value

I for one am unable to modify the system registry or run something as admin. When I launch Arc.exe after following the original instructions, I now (after 1.0 got released) get "Arc is not installed, please run [link]". Does anybody know if this can be circumvented without having Dev mode enabled, modifying HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or running as admin?

@AzuraHorizons
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@T1ckbase great find. I have confirmed this as well, and will be uploading a new version soon that I have 90% finished atm. Using this method doesn't seem to need developer mode enabled to work. You will however have to uninstall the unpackaged version first for it to work.

Do you know if uninstalling the unpackaged version will remove my existing data with Arc?

@devz3ro
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devz3ro commented May 17, 2024

@T1ckbase great find. I have confirmed this as well, and will be uploading a new version soon that I have 90% finished atm. Using this method doesn't seem to need developer mode enabled to work. You will however have to uninstall the unpackaged version first for it to work.

Do you know if uninstalling the unpackaged version will remove my existing data with Arc?

Unfortunately it will. But once you are on the packaged version, you can upgrade without losing any data.

@VelikiySebas
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image
any fixes?

@LukaTV939
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image any fixes?

Just ignore it

@VelikiySebas
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image any fixes?

Just ignore it

I'm interested in removing or suppressing this error, that's was my question about

@AzuraHorizons
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Interestingly, today, Arc updated from within the app with zero issues on my Win10 install - is it possible they've added Win10 support in the latest update without saying anything about it?

@devz3ro
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devz3ro commented May 23, 2024

Interestingly, today, Arc updated from within the app with zero issues on my Win10 install - is it possible they've added Win10 support in the latest update without saying anything about it?

Looks like they have added support for Windows 10 as of version 1.3.X. I will deprecate my repo, thanks for the heads up.

@progamer63
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@T1ckbase great find. I have confirmed this as well, and will be uploading a new version soon that I have 90% finished atm. Using this method doesn't seem to need developer mode enabled to work. You will however have to uninstall the unpackaged version first for it to work.

Do you know if uninstalling the unpackaged version will remove my existing data with Arc?

Unfortunately it will. But once you are on the packaged version, you can upgrade without losing any data.

any way to backup user data before deleting arc installed via this method?
or, is there a way to remove the appmanifest entry from the startmenu, incase that lets me have dual arc installs for a moment?

@progamer63
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ok i figured it out myself:
using the arcInstaller.ps1 that was send here ages ago now, it worked fine. but it doesnt run unless you update the windows app sdk to 1.5, so here's a link to that: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/windows-app-sdk/downloads
i used the big "download latest stable" button and it worked
image

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