Playtime Tracker v2.2.0

Playtime Tracker 2.2.0 fixes play that wasn't being recorded, recognises Roblox and other popular games, keeps itself up to date, and locks your history so it can't be edited by hand.

Download: Setup.exe below. Double-click it and follow the steps; no admin rights needed. If your PC doesn't have Microsoft's .NET 8 Desktop Runtime yet, setup downloads it from Microsoft and installs it (Windows asks for permission once).

Fixed

• Short sessions are recorded again. Before, any game open for less than 30 seconds was discarded when you closed it. Now every session counts, however short.
  • If you still had the old 30-second setting, it's switched off automatically.
  • A value you chose yourself is kept.
  • You can still set a minimum under Settings → Tracking.
• Roblox is now tracked. It installs outside any launcher, into a folder that changes with every update, so it was never recognised.
• Games keep being recognised after they update. Games from Windows' game list still match after moving into a new version folder.
• Running totals on the Games page count up live instead of showing "0m".

New

Built-in detection for popular games

These are now tracked automatically, even though they don't come from Steam, Epic or another launcher:

• Roblox, including the Microsoft Store version
• Minecraft: Java Edition and Minecraft for Windows (Bedrock)
• Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero
• osu!, League of Legends, VALORANT and Fortnite

Only the game itself counts, not its launcher, crash reporter or Roblox Studio.

Automatic updates

• Checks: a minute after start and every 6 hours after that, Playtime Tracker checks this project's GitHub releases.
• Updates itself: when an update is out and no game is running, it installs it, restarts and shows "Playtime Tracker updated". It never updates in the middle of a session.
• Settings → Updates: turn automatic installs off to just get a notification (plus an Update to x.y.z… item in the tray menu), turn checking off, or check and install by hand. A progress bar shows while an update downloads.
• Checked before it runs: an update is installed only if it comes from this project's release on GitHub over a secure connection, and matches the size and SHA-256 checksum GitHub recorded for it. If anything doesn't match, nothing is installed.
• Portable copies: copies that weren't set up with the installer are never replaced; they get a link to the download page instead.
• Privacy: the only data sent is a standard request to GitHub for the latest release (your IP address and the app's version). Turn off Check for updates to stop it.

Custom accent colours, in the app's own style

The + accent swatch opens a new colour picker that matches the rest of the app:

• a saturation and brightness field
• a hue slider
• a hex code box
• a live preview of buttons, selection and charts in the new colour

It works fully from the keyboard.

Your data is locked down

• Encrypted: your history and settings are encrypted and integrity-checked for your Windows account, as in 2.0.
• Old copies are caught: every save is now numbered, and the number is also stored (protected) in your Windows user profile. If an older copy of the history is put back to undo playtime, the app notices, uses the newest genuine copy and tells you.
• Locked while running: other programs can read the data files and reports, but can't change, replace or delete them.
• Edits to the reports aren't kept: Game Stats.txt says it's generated from your protected history and rewritten on every save.

Upgrading from 2.0.0

• Run Setup.exe once. Version 2.0.0 has no updater, so this step is manual. From 2.2.0 on, updates install themselves.
• Your history, settings and "start with Windows" choice are kept.
• Play from before this update can't be recovered: short sessions and Roblox time that were never recorded weren't saved at the time.

Behind the scenes

Work has started on a faster, lighter Playtime Tracker built in Rust, with a new Windows 11-style dashboard. This release doesn't include it yet; the plan and progress are in docs/architecture/.