Installing Tailscale on Windows with MSI
This article shows how to install Tailscale with the Windows Installer (MSI) package. If you want to use the Tailscale
.exe
installer, see Installing Tailscale on Windows.
To install
-
Download the latest
.msi
file from the Tailscale Packages page. You need to choose the version for your CPU architecture. If your architecture is based onARM64
, use thex86
version. -
Run the installer. You can double click the download, or you can use the
msiexec
command:msiexec /i <path_to_tailscale_msi.msi>
Optionally, write logging information from
msiexec
to a file. The folder used for the log file must already exist.msiexec /L <path_to_log.log> /i <path_to_tailscale_msi.msi>
-
Note the new Tailscale icon in your system tray once installation is complete. If it is not visible, click the up arrow to find it in the system tray overflow area.
-
Right-click on the Tailscale icon to expose configuration options and status messages.
-
Under your account, click on Log in to launch a browser window, and authenticate using your SSO identity provider.
Congratulations! You’ve added your Windows workstation to your Tailscale network.
To uninstall
Users can uninstall Tailscale through the Windows control panel.
For system administration or debugging purposes, you can also uninstall with msiexec
. If you uninstall with
msiexec
, you must use the same .msi
file that you used to install the client.
msiexec /x <path_to_tailscale_msi.msi>
You can also use the /L
option to write logging information from msiexec
to a file.
msiexec /L <path_to_log.log> /x <path_to_tailscale_msi.msi>
Properties
If you use the msiexec
command-line tool, you can set several MSI properties that control the user’s experience with
the Tailscale client. For example, this installation command hides the Network Devices menu item in the Tailscale client:
msiexec TS_NETWORKDEVICES="hide" /i tailscale-setup-1.22.0-amd64.msi
Tailscale MSI properties, if set, are stored in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Tailscale
registry key.
The registry value type for all Tailscale MSI properties is REG_SZ
.
The following properties can be used with MSI.
INSTALLDIR
Specifies the path of the installation directory on disk. If this property is not used, the installation path
defaults to “C:\Program Files\Tailscale”, or if using x86
(which includes ARM64
), “C:\Program Files (x86)\Tailscale”.
- Registry name: InstallDir
- Possible values: A valid directory path.
TS_ADMINCONSOLE
Controls visibility of the Admin Console menu item
- Registry name: AdminConsole
- Possible values: “show”, “hide”
TS_ALLOWINCOMINGCONNECTIONS
Controls the Preferences > Allow Incoming Connections menu item
- Registry name: AllowIncomingConnections
- Possible values: “always”, “never”, “user-decides”
TS_KEYEXPIRATIONNOTICE
Enables a warning message that will be displayed up to
- Registry name: KeyExpirationNotice
- Possible values: String value that can be parsed by Go’s
time.ParseDuration
function. For example, “12h”.
TS_NETWORKDEVICES
Controls the visibility of the Network Devices submenu
- Registry name: NetworkDevices
- Possible values: “show”, “hide”
TS_NOLAUNCH
Controls whether the Tailscale client is launched as part of the installation. This property is applicable only during silent installation.
- Registry name: Not applicable—no value is saved to the registry.
- Possible values: Any string. Set this to a non-empty string to prevent the Tailscale GUI client from launching as part of installation.
TS_TESTMENU
Controls whether it is possible for users to bring up the debug menu by holding either ctrl or shift when opening the Tailscale menu.
- Registry name: TestMenu
- Possible values: “show”, “hide”
TS_UNATTENDEDMODE
Controls the Preferences > Run Unattended menu item
- Registry name: UnattendedMode
- Possible values: “always”, “never”, “user-decides”
TS_UPDATEMENU
Controls the visibility of the Update Tailscale menu item.
- Registry name: UpdateMenu
- Possible values: “show”, “hide”