ideaIC 2024.1.4 Deploy System-wide plugins (For All Users) is broken
Hi Everyone,
I am a software distribution specialist at a large university. Every year, we deploy several versions of IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition.
Recently, we received a request to deploy version 2024.1.4 (ideaIC-2024.1.4.exe) on Windows 10.
The request also includes deploying two plugins: Scala and CheckStyle-IDEA.
In previous versions, I placed these plugins in:
%ProgramFiles%\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2023.2.2\plugins
This method worked perfectly. All students who logged on to a shared Windows 10 desktop received the plugins, and it was tamper-proof due to the read-only nature of %ProgramFiles%.
However, in the newest version (2024.1.4), this method no longer works. I first download the desired plugins from the GUI and then move the plugins from:
%AppData%\JetBrains\IdeaIC2024.1\plugins
to:
%ProgramFiles%\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2024.1.4\plugins
I haven't found any documentation indicating that this is no longer supported.
Additionally, editing the idea.properties file in the Program Files folder does not produce the desired result.
Is this a bug, an intentional change, or has the method for installing system-wide plugins changed?
Thank you for your assistance.
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Found a solution! The idea.properties can be used to set al alternative plugin path. Remember to use forward slashes when defining the path.
Still wondering why the original method doesn't work anymore.
Hello, Subsense. The plugin installation directory depends on the way you install the IDEs (via Toolbox or without it) and on the custom settings you specified (
idea.propertiesfile, as you have already mentioned). The default plugin directory on Windows now isC:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\JetBrains\<IDEversion>\plugins, but another one was used before for the Toolbox installations.Dear all regarding mass deployment or global provisioning of JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA plugins:
idea.properties in IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2.1 refers to %userprofile%\.IntelliJIdea\config which is wrong for windows installations.
Copying to %ProgramFiles%\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2023.2.2\plugins does no longer work in 2024 I'm afraid.
On Windows the easiest way out of the box as of now is to copy any downloaded plugins from %appdata%\JetBrains\<IDE>\plugins\<plugin_xy> (which is the extracted zip file; folder name = file name) to the default user profile (i.e. c:\users\default\appdata\roaming\JetBrains\<IDE>\plugins). This allows for updates and can be roamed using UE-V.
Regards Ralph
Note to users in sysprep audit mode: %userprofile%\appdata\local\JetBrains\<IDE>\plugins can be deleted.
Ralph Buchfelder
Thank you for your response, but it only addresses part of the issue.
The default profile is applied solely as a template for new users on a particular device. In an educational environment, each device often has multiple existing user profiles. These profiles will not be updated if we implement the solution you suggested.
A more robust solution would be to utilize the
C:\ProgramDatafolder (accessible via%ProgramData%), which is designed for this purpose.Additionally, you suggested using
c:\users\default\appdata\roaming\JetBrains\(accessible via%appdata%\JetBrains\). This is the roaming section of the user profile, and it is not advisable to place large files or folders here. Doing so would significantly delay login and logout times, especially for users with 40+ plugins. The%appdata%folder is intended for small configuration and license files, not for plugin data.Best regards,
Thanks. You're right. Roaming Profiles are not recommended as they cause delay. If you want to keep custom userdata/plugins, User-Experience Virtualization (UE-V) does the right job (it syncs %appdata%\JetBrains upon triggers like idea64.exe start/stop ).
I need to deploy license data on every new and existing user profile so a few megabytes of plugins don't matter. (GPO/Logon Scripts: "if not exist, copy") .
I just wonder why they broke the config path in bin\idea.properties on windows platform.