Installation failed – Error “Unable to write to the specified folder”

Symptoms

When trying to install or update the Office Timeline Add-in, the installation fails and you get an error message that says “Unable to write to the specified folder”:

Overview

This issue typically occurs when your %AppData% folder is redirected to a shared location. This is where Office Timeline tries to set up a file that triggers an onboarding (“first run”) experience for first-time installations. If we can't write in the %AppData% folder during setup because of security permissions, the installation process is disrupted and the “Unable to write” error occurs.

Solution

We’re working hard on developing a fix for this scenario and we’ll release it as soon as possible. In the meantime, to install the add-in successfully, the workaround is instructing Office Timeline to skip setting up the first-run experience. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Download the latest enterprise deployment package from here: 
   OfficeTimelinePreExtracted.zip 
   (You need to have Version 4.3.4 or higher for the next steps to work)

2. When configuring your software distribution system to install Office Timeline, add the parameter WITHFIRSTRUNSEQUENCE with the value 0 to the installation command line. For example, your installation command line could be:
   
   msiexec /i OfficeTimeline.msi /qb! WITHFIRSTRUNSEQUENCE=0

   For more details on enterprise deployment, please see our guide here.

3. Open PowerPoint and check if the Office Timeline tab is visible in the PowerPoint ribbon. This means the add-in was installed successfully.