Installing the File Server Agent

This page is the practical walkthrough — download, run, click through, confirm active. For how the pairing code and credential mechanism actually works underneath, see Agent: Install & Enrollment.

Before you start

You need three things:

• A Windows machine to install onto — the agent ships as a 64-bit MSI, installed under Program Files.
• An account signed in to the BYOVault dashboard with access to the tenant you are connecting this file server to.
• A browser on some device — not necessarily the file server itself — to complete the pairing step.

Many real file servers, particularly Windows Server Core installs, have no browser at all. The installer is deliberately designed around that: the pairing code and link are readable and copyable from the very first screen, with opening a browser directly on the machine offered only as a shortcut when one happens to be available.

Step 1: Download the installer

From the dashboard, open the tenant’s file servers tab and click Download BYOVault Agent (.msi). This is the same installer file for every customer and every tenant — nothing about the download itself is tenant-specific, since tenant identity is established later, during pairing, not baked into the download.

Step 2: Run the installer

Run the downloaded MSI as an administrator. The wizard follows the familiar install-directory-picker sequence — welcome, license, install location — with one additional page inserted before the final confirmation step, describing the pairing step that runs next.

There is no field on that page for an API URL or a token; production installs point at BYOVault’s API by default, and the actual sign-in happens in a separate window once installation begins.

Enrollment is not an optional step you can defer. The installer launches the pairing window partway through installation and blocks until it exits; canceling that window fails the whole install rather than leaving an unpaired agent behind.

What gets installed

The installer places three self-contained .NET components under Program Files\BYOVault Agent:

• The backup service itself: BYOVaultAgent.exe
• The enrollment tool: BYOVaultEnroll.exe, in its own Enroll subfolder
• The self-update helper: BYOVaultUpdater.exe

It also registers and starts a Windows service:

A Start Menu folder is also created, with a shortcut back into the enrollment tool (for re-enrolling or using the advanced token path later) and a shortcut that runs msiexec /x to uninstall.

Step 3: Pair the machine

On the file server

Once installation reaches the pairing step, a window titled “Sign in with Microsoft” opens on the file server. It requests a one-time pairing code from BYOVault and displays that code (8 characters, grouped for readability) together with a short link to the dashboard’s pairing page.

Two buttons sit below it: Copy Link, and Open Here for opening the link in a local browser if the machine has one.

On a second device

1. Open the copied link, or go to the pairing page and type the code in by hand.
2. Confirm the machine requesting to pair — you’ll be shown its hostname — and sign in with either a Microsoft account or a BYOVault email and password.
3. Pick the tenant this file server belongs to and give it a name. The name field is pre-filled with the machine’s hostname but can be changed to anything more meaningful (for example, “HQ File Server”).

Completing pairing

Submitting that form is what actually completes pairing. The installer window, still open on the file server, is polling in the background and picks up the approval automatically — there is nothing further to click on the file server itself. Once it does, the window shows “Paired successfully!” and closes on its own, and the installer finishes.

Step 4: Confirm it shows up as active

Back in the dashboard’s file servers tab, the new entry moves from Pending Enrollment to Active as soon as pairing completes — this happens at the moment the agent’s credential is issued, not at some later first check-in.

The row also shows the agent’s installed version and a Last seen column, which starts populating once the service begins polling for work, roughly once a minute.

If a row stays on Pending Enrollment longer than expected, the pairing window was likely closed or canceled before the approval step was completed on the second device; the Start Menu shortcut lets you retry without reinstalling.

A newly active file server has no folders scoped to it yet, so nothing backs up on its own. Expand the row and add one or more paths — a local drive letter or a UNC path to a share — to actually put it to work.

The advanced path: pasting an enrollment token

This path is for a machine that cannot complete an interactive sign-in — for example:

• A silent, scripted install.
• A server with no way to hand the pairing code to a second device.

The dashboard can instead generate a one-time enrollment token from the same file servers tab, under “Advanced: enroll with a pasted token instead.” Paste that token into the agent’s enrollment dialog, reached from the “Advanced: I have an enrollment token” link on the Start Menu enrollment shortcut, along with the API URL.

This path enrolls in a single call with no polling and no second device involved, and has its own separate expiry from the pairing code.

For what the service does after enrollment — how often it checks for jobs, how it decides what changed, and how it adapts to available bandwidth — see Agent: Updates & Lifecycle and Agent: Bandwidth & Concurrency. For rolling this installer out to many machines at once rather than one at a time, see File Server Agent Deployment.