v4.0.0 — the launch engine, rebuilt

This release fixes the three things people actually reported: clones that died, clones missing capabilities the original app had, and clones that didn't even show the app's icon. All three had concrete root causes, each reproduced on a real machine before being fixed.

If you used AppCloner before

Your existing clones keep working and nothing is migrated destructively. Two things worth knowing:

• If a clone of yours misbehaves, right-click it → "Revisar y reparar". It fixes the target path, re-extracts the icon, rebuilds the shortcuts and tells you what was wrong.
• WebView2 isolation is off for existing clones on purpose. Turning it on moves the app's web-panel data folder, which would sign you out. New clones get it enabled; existing ones can opt in from the clone panel.

Clones no longer die on launch

The wrong executable was being launched. The isolation strategy was chosen by inspecting one executable and then a different one was started. Two disguises caused it:

• Squirrel's Update.exe — what Discord and GitHub Desktop shortcuts point at.
• The Squirrel stub: a ~350 KB App.exe in the install root that only relaunches the real versioned binary and exits. (Claude Desktop's is 355 KB; the real one is 222 MB.)

Either way the watched process died a second later. Worse: when the app's name didn't reveal what it was, it fell through to the generic strategy and shared the original session while the UI reported "reliable isolation".

Also fixed here:

• Startup is now actually watched. It distinguishes alive / handed off to a window that was already open (exit 0 — previously reported as success while nothing opened) / dead, with the exit code translated into plain language (missing DLL, needs administrator, access denied…).
• Microsoft Store (MSIX) apps are activated through their package identity, so they keep their capabilities instead of being started as a bare .exe from a protected folder.
• Stale paths are repaired by version number rather than folder date.
• --user-data-dir="D:\my folder" reached the app with the quotes still attached.
• A target that isn't an app at all (powershell.exe, Update.exe, java.exe…) is now called out instead of producing a clone that silently never opens.

Clones keep the original app's capabilities

Many apps install inside %LOCALAPPDATA%/%APPDATA%. Redirecting that variable to an empty folder hid the app's own installation from itself — the exact cause of "the clone opens but half of it is missing". The install folder is now re-attached with a directory junction (no administrator rights needed), so the app finds everything while its session still goes to the clone.

Plus: a per-clone WebView2 data folder, and more Electron/Chromium runtimes detected so fewer apps fall back to environment redirection, which doesn't isolate a Chromium at all.

Clones look like the app they clone

Two independent bugs:

• Icon extraction worked on no machine at all. PrivateExtractIconsW was requested from shell32.dll, which doesn't export it — it lives in user32.dll. Every call failed silently and fell back to a blurry 32 px path or a letter avatar. Icons now come out at 256 px.
• Desktop shortcuts showed the Python or AppCloner icon. Windows only draws .ico in a shortcut's icon slot, and the cached icon was a PNG, so it fell back to the launcher's own icon.

Store-app icons aren't in the .exe at all — they're declared in the package manifest, now read at up to 256 px. A true multi-resolution .ico (16→256) is generated per clone, with a small dot in the clone's colour so two clones of the same app are distinguishable at a glance. Each clone also gets its own AppUserModelID, so they no longer collapse into a single taskbar button.

Data safety

• A live clone's session is no longer wiped. If the tracked process ended while the app was still running, an ephemeral clone destroyed a session in use.
• Restoring from Trash no longer loses the session on a failed move.
• A clone's size, its backup .zip and its Trash copy no longer swallow the app's whole installation.
• Clear cache refuses to run while the clone is open and no longer deletes Service Worker / CacheStorage, which hold app state rather than cache.
• Deleting a clone waits for its process to exit and removes its scheduled task.

Download

AppCloner.exe — portable, ~20 MB, Windows 10/11 64-bit. No Python needed.

Built by GitHub Actions from commit 0c189eb and smoke-tested before publishing. Verify it against SHA256SUMS.txt:

8720e047e7b4f2b7a73450a59c65a7ac8df533c76f296940612166507d72951a  AppCloner.exe

The binary is unsigned, so SmartScreen may warn on first run ("More info" → "Run anyway"), and some antivirus engines flag single-file PyInstaller builds as a false positive. The full source is here — build it yourself with build.bat if you prefer.

Full detail in the changelog.

AppCloner v3.1.0

Polished visual redesign (soft card shadows, gradient accents, crisp icons) and English as the default language (still switchable to Espanol, 中文, Portugues, Francais, Deutsch).

Single portable AppCloner.exe, no requirements (Windows 10/11). SmartScreen may ask for confirmation because the binary is unsigned.

(c) EazyHood - free to use, resale not permitted. See LICENSE.

AppCloner v3.0.0

Gran ampliacion: 24 areas de mejora (aislamiento Sandboxie/otra cuenta, seguridad con PIN y cifrado EFS, papelera, plantillas, perfiles de arranque, programador, bandeja del sistema, proxy/UA por clon, monitores, backups, auto-actualizacion, grupos y multiseleccion, tests+CI, y mas). Ejecutable unico sin requisitos (Windows 10/11), interfaz en 6 idiomas. Ver CHANGELOG. SmartScreen puede pedir confirmacion por ser un binario sin firmar. / Big update: 24 improvement areas, single portable .exe, UI in 6 languages.

AppCloner v2.0.0

Clonador de apps para Windows con sesiones independientes. Ejecutable unico, sin requisitos (Windows 10/11). Interfaz en 6 idiomas (es/en/zh/pt/fr/de). SmartScreen puede pedir confirmacion la primera vez por ser un binario sin firmar. / Windows app cloner with isolated sessions - single portable .exe, UI in 6 languages.