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"Installation failed. The Dropbox installation failed to start" error on Windows 11

Dropbox has worked fine for many years on my Lenovo Thinkpad X1, then suddenly stopped working. The link on the start menu became inactive. Starting Dropbox from dropbox.exe directly said the installation was corrupt.

I have downloaded the Installer and the Off-line installer and both give the message "Installation failed. The Dropbox installation failed to start".

Turning off the Microsoft Firewall and Anti-Virus makes no difference. There is no VPN installed. Window 11 has all the updates. Also I have uninstalled Dropbox from my computer and tried to reinstall, again the Dropbox installation will not start. At each stage my computer has been rebooted.

My datafile to which Dropbox is attached remains intact.

It seems I not the only person suffering this problem, but no final solution seems to be offered. I wondered about searching my registry to delete any references to Dropbox.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

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MasterHD

I had the same error:

Installation failed. The Dropbox installation failed to start.

I also could not run Dropbox nor uninstall it!
I asked ChatGPT to troubleshoot with me. After spending an hour cleaning registries, folders, repairing, safe-mode, etc. I then tried running the standalone installer from the command prompt with a flag to try and view log output. I started my command prompt and navigated to the location of my installer exe, then ran:

"Dropbox 228.4.5567 Offline Installer.x64.exe" /log DropboxInstallLog.txt

This failed even sooner but at least produced an error code 0x80040c01.

ChatGPT realized this may be an issue with Google Update components. It suggested doing a silent install with the /S flag:

"Dropbox 228.4.5567 Offline Installer.x64.exe" /S

And this worked immediately!

All comments

Walter

Hey @folder - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please try an advanced reinstall using the offline installer from this page directly and let me know how it goes?

If you still get the same error, please send me a screenshot as well!

Thanks!

folder

The following message occurs running the linked program (first on the program list below 222.4.5042):

folder

Can you explain how to "If you use selective sync, take note of the preferences you applied."? How is it done when Dropbox has stopped running?

Hannah

Hey @folder, I'm afraid that if the app is not running, you won't be able to see your selective sync settings.

Does the advanced reinstall help otherwise?

folder

There has not been an answer to why stable build 222.4.5042 produces either:

OR the same installation error reported in the start of this thread.

Nancy

Hey @folder, hope you don’t mind if I jump in here. You don’t happen to use Windows 11 in S mode, correct?

folder

I do not think so. It is Windows 11 Pro 24H2.

Megan

Hey @folder, let me also jump in here!

Do you get the error on the screenshot, right when you're about to run the .exe file?

In any case, can I send you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this?

folder

Windows asks if I want the program to make changes to the computer. Answer yes and the message dropbox installer failed to start appears.

folder

Windows asks if I want the program to make changes to the computer. Answer yes and the message dropbox installer failed to start appears. You may send an email.

Megan

Hi @folder, in this case can I send you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this?

folder

I have now got the installer to run, after using a program to remove every reference to Dropbox. However now I have a problem linking to my existing Dropbox folder. When I go to Advanced Features the dropdown menu for file location says it will create a new Dropbox folder:

You can see that the existing Dropbox folder is listed but I do not want another one created within it.

How to proceed to link to the existing Dropbox folder to sync it with the online Dropbox data?

Jay

Hi @folder, are you able to select the parent folder in which the Dropbox folder exists?

For instance, if the folder is C:\Files\Dropbox, choose C:\Files for the Dropbox folder.

MasterHD

I had the same error:

Installation failed. The Dropbox installation failed to start.

"Dropbox 228.4.5567 Offline Installer.x64.exe" /log DropboxInstallLog.txt

This failed even sooner but at least produced an error code 0x80040c01.

ChatGPT realized this may be an issue with Google Update components. It suggested doing a silent install with the /S flag:

"Dropbox 228.4.5567 Offline Installer.x64.exe" /S

And this worked immediately!