Pinman — Beta (2.0.260729)

Pinman — Beta (2.0.260729)

What's new in this build

First posted build. Highlights of what Pinman 2 can do today. Consider all features to be in active development and preliminary.

Added

• Dashboaard - overview of your PC health, settings drift, and prority actions.

• Journal — keep dated notes as you work and modify your PC. Include a checkpoint, which logs specific changes to the machine, in your notes.

• Captures - capture the state of your machine at any moment in time, including the files, registry keys, and Windows settings. A Checkpoint is a capture of the state of your machine, for comparison. A Savepoint is a capture that also backs up the changed files.

• Explore - browse files and properties, with side-by-side compare of changes over time, across your system, down to individual settings. Drill into data files for specific properties.

• Schema - defines the scope of your captures to specific tracked files, properties, settings. Ability to broaden the scope of captures to explore and compare untracked items.

• Profiles - defines a target state of a specific set of properties on your computer. Collect changesets of properties into reusable, applyable profiles. Surgically apply a profile to restore a previous set. Undo last apply. Detect drift of the live system against each profiles' target settings.

• Guided Mode - profiles can write directly to your data files, system settings, and registry. Or you can author guided manual steps to walk users through changes Pinman can't make directly (work in progress).

• Machine - also track hardware devices, ports, and OS settings. Choose hardware devices to watch, track video and USB ports status. Detect tracked applications status and Windows system runtime settings.

• Operator Mode — bonus remote-control Operator Mode for machines in a public setting. From any phone or browser, control the volume, dim the displays, lock inputs, show slideshows and text overlays, reboot or shutdown the machine.

• Localhost - everything runs on the machine being tracked, not a cloud service, Internet not required. The browser based UI provides access across your LAN.

• Kits — install configuration packages (schema + profiles + guidance) prepared for a software ecosystem. Community authoring tools.

• Interfaces — browser based user interface (GUI), commandline terminal interface (CLI), REST API means everything is scriptable for humans and AI agents.

• More - other features include readonly-mode to protect and sandbox; switch between multiple projects; code signed installer/uninstaller; run Pinman services from system tray; Windows registry blackliset and whitelist; tag tracked items (zones);

• Tutorials — ability to install a disposable sample project (pinman tutorial install basics) and follow the matching walkthrough in the online docs. (content still being written)

• Online docs - concepts, guides, and the full CLI reference at pinmantech.com/docs. The complete structure is listed, with each page marked draft or soon while the beta fills it in.

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New to Pinman?

The README covers what it does, the changelog has the full history, and the roadmap shows what's planned next.

Pinman captures, compares, and manages the files and settings that configure a Windows machine — so you can see what changed, test alternatives, and get back to a setup that works.

This is beta software

Pinman is in beta and this build is a dated snapshot of work in progress. It reads and writes real configuration on the machine you install it on — files, registry keys, and Windows settings. Treat it accordingly:

• Back up anything you can't afford to lose before pointing Pinman at it. (Pinman defaults to read-only mode for safe sandboxing and evaluation).

• Prefer a test machine or a cabinet you can rebuild over your only working setup.

• Expect rough edges, and expect builds to land often.

New here? Follow Getting Started to install Pinman and choose a first project. Then take the Basics tutorial — a disposable sample project you install into Pinman (pinman tutorial install basics), paired with a walkthrough in the docs. It teaches the workflow without touching your real configuration. (Basics walkthrough: draft — the sample project ships now, the guided page lands during the beta.)

We run the beta as an invite program mainly so we can tell you when things change and hear back when they break: join the beta →.

Install (quick start)

1. Download Pinman-Setup-<version>.exe from the Assets below.
2. Run it and follow the setup prompts. (Access from other machines on your network is an opt-in step during setup; local use needs nothing extra.)
3. When setup finishes, choose your first project — pick Basics if you want a safe sample to learn on — then open Pinman in a browser. Full walkthrough: Getting Started.

The installer is signed by Parkerhill Technology Corporation. Windows SmartScreen may still show "Windows protected your PC" until the signature builds download reputation — click More info → Run anyway, and check that the publisher named in the prompt is Parkerhill.

Verify your download

Two checks, and they prove different things.

The signature is the one that matters. Right-click the exe → Properties → Digital Signatures — it must name Parkerhill Technology Corporation. Windows checks this against a certificate chain automatically; it's what tells you the file is genuinely ours and hasn't been altered.

The checksum confirms the download completed intact, and that you have this build rather than an older one (an older build passes the signature check just as happily). Download SHA256SUMS.txt into the same folder as the exe, then:

(Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\Pinman-Setup-<version>.exe).Hash
#   compare (case-insensitively) against the entry in SHA256SUMS.txt

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)

Support

Found a bug? Open an issue — this tracker is public, so keep private details out and email them to jonathan@pinmantech.com referencing your issue number. See SUPPORT.md.