DS4Windows 4.1.1

Controller detection

• A controller left disabled in Windows (exclusive mode interrupted, or the re-enable step failed) is now enabled again by the next scan, so it is found again without a manual fix. The enable step is also retried up to three times

Settings

• App settings are saved when leaving the Settings tab, so they are no longer lost if DS4Windows is killed or closes abnormally
• The Hours/Days unit of "Check every" is now remembered, and values of 24 hours or more are no longer ignored

System tray

• A single left click on the tray icon opens the window, or minimizes it when it is already open
• "Open Program Folder" moved from the tray menu to the Utils group of the Settings tab

Version 4.1.0

DS4Windows 4.1.0

Updates

• Automatic update for copies installed with the setup program: accepting an update downloads the new installer from the release, checks its SHA-256 checksum against the release's SHA256SUMS.txt, then installs it silently and starts DS4Windows again. An all-users install in Program Files asks for administrator rights
• Portable copies (zip or folder), or a failed download, still open the release page, now with a message explaining why

Upgrading from 4.0.0: version 4.0.0 cannot install updates by itself, so download and run DS4Windows_4.1.0_x64_Setup.exe once (or replace your portable copy with the zip). Later versions are installed automatically when you accept the update.

DS4Windows 4.0.0

First release of the Baba0bab fork, based on DS4Windows 3.9.9 by schmaldeo.

Platform

• Now targets .NET 10 (LTS). .NET 8 support ends on 2026-11-10
• Updated NLog 5.5.1, System.Management 10.0.13, TaskScheduler 2.12.2, WpfScreenHelper 2.1.1 and CsWin32 0.3.363

User interface

• Modernized theme (light and dark) with Windows 11 style controls: rounded corners, flat surfaces, accent states, thin scrollbars, underline tabs, card group boxes. Every window keeps the same layout
• The native title bar now follows the selected theme
• Start/Stop and Save use the accent button style
• Profile editor now shows the rainbow lightbar state when a profile is loaded
• Controller Readings refreshes on the UI thread and never waits on the input thread, so a busy interface can no longer stack up refreshes or stall a thread. It only redraws when a new report arrived (about 3x less CPU with the panel open)

Controller connection (HID)

• Fixed device handles never being closed, which leaked handles and could leave a controller locked in exclusive mode after a disconnect
• Fixed timed reads (Joy-Con, Switch Pro) leaving a pending request writing into freed memory. Timeouts are now reported as timeouts instead of read errors
• Reads no longer allocate a kernel event per report: 0 B allocated and about 3x less CPU per read
• Feature, serial and calibration reads no longer touch an already closed handle
• Fixed a crash when Windows returns a device description without a terminating null character

Controller detection and hotplug

• One faulty device no longer aborts the whole controller scan, and devices opened but not kept are closed
• Fixed a lost hotplug event when a controller was plugged in just as detection finished, and the hotplug worker now survives exceptions
• Joy-Con USB handshake can no longer spin forever and freeze detection when unplugged during init
• Joy-Con and Switch Pro now wait for the reply matching each subcommand, which fixes occasional wrong stick calibration
• Fixed an out-of-range slot at startup with more controllers than slots
• Stopping a controller now waits for its input thread to really exit
• No more bogus "read failure: 995" warning on an intentional stop

Input processing

• Rewrote the button debouncer: no per-report allocation, bounces filtered on both press and release, setting applied live, and disconnected controllers are no longer kept in memory

Stability

• An invalid UDP server address no longer crashes the app or blocks startup
• Errors during special actions no longer crash the app
• The "last update check" date is now stored culture-invariant (day and month were swapped on non-US systems)

Updates

• The update check now looks for releases of this fork instead of the discontinued upstream project. Accepting an update opens its release page; DS4Updater is no longer downloaded
• "Skip this version" is now honored by the automatic check at startup
• Releases ship an installer, a portable zip and SHA-256 checksums

Tests and documentation

• Fixed outdated test fixtures and added debouncer tests (16 of 16 tests pass)
• Added build and install guide (COMPIL.md) and a summary of the fixes (AMELIORATIONS.md)