WindowCraft v1.3.0

WindowCraft 1.3.0

This release adds an introduction on the first start and a short tip on each page. The catalogs, the installers and the extensions work as in 1.2.1.

Introduction

On the first start without command line options, four questions open over the window. Each has two to four answers and changes nothing on its own.

Question	Answers	What the answer changes
What do you want to do with WindowCraft?	Fresh install, slimmed down / Privacy / Games and performance / General tidy-up	A fresh install also marks the 14 default AppX packages for removal. A tidy-up opens the Cleaner tab instead of Tweaks & Privacy.
Do you want to keep your files?	Yes / No, the system is new	What the cleaner ticks after its first scan: temporary files, logs and minidumps, or those plus GPU shader and developer caches
Will you build your own Windows ISO?	Yes / No	Adds ISO Studio to the plan
How much should change?	Carefully / Standard / Everything	The Minimal (6), Standard (13) or Advanced (21) preset; Everything also marks the 14 AppX packages

The last screen lists the plan. Start puts it into the queues and opens the first page; nothing runs until you press Run Tweaks, Remove or Clean Selected. Skip, on every screen, and Escape close the questions for good. The keys 1 to 4 pick an answer and Enter starts.

After that, each page shows a tip once. Next opens the next page with an unread tip, in sidebar order, and the last tip has Done. Don't show again turns them all off, and a click outside a tip closes it without saving. Settings can show the introduction and the tips again.

A start with --open, --inspect, --config or --preset shows neither the questions nor the tips.

Tested

The unit and integration tests pass (538, clippy clean). New tests cover the saved state and what happens to a newer or broken one, Skip on each of the five screens and after a restart, Escape, the number keys and Enter, what Start ticks, each tip once, Next through every page, a click outside a tip, the Settings buttons, a settings file that cannot be written, and every new text in every language. A layout test puts each question screen and tip into windows of 878x425, 980x600 and 1280x800 in all eight languages and checks that Skip, Back, Start, Next and Don't show again lie fully inside.

The x64 packages, built locally with packaging/build.ps1, ran in VirtualBox on Windows 11 Home 26H2, build 26300, Polish, at 1024x768:

Test	Result
verify-install.ps1 -Version 1.3.0 (MSI, MSI with WCLANGUAGE=pl, setup.exe)	No failed checks, nothing left after uninstall
setup.exe of 1.3.0 over 1.2.1 with a recorded session and German dark settings	One visible entry, the binary reports 1.3.0, history byte for byte the same, settings kept, uninstall leaves nothing
WCLANGUAGE unset and set to each of the eight languages	The value lands in HKLM, the app opens in that language, uninstall removes the key
Every page in every language, plus dark and light	168 checks pass; no question or tip covers a page opened with --open
First start in each of the eight languages: answers by key, Start, eight real mouse clicks on Next and Done, then a second start	153 checks pass; each click saved one more tip in sidebar order, and the second start showed nothing and changed nothing
Escape on the first screen in each language, then a second start	Saved as skipped; the questions did not show again
A click on a sidebar row while a tip is open	The tip closed without saving and the page opened

Not tested: the answers picked with the mouse in the VM (they were picked with the number keys; unit tests cover the mouse path), the Settings buttons in the VM, ARM64 hardware and display scaling above 100 %. The texts in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Ukrainian were not read by native speakers.

Known bugs

ID	Bug	Workaround
SEC-3	OOSU10.exe and Autologon.exe have no pinned hash, because their vendors publish them at fixed "latest" URLs. They must pass Authenticode.	None needed.

Known limitations

• An upgrade from 1.2.x shows the questions once, because the older settings file has no record of them.
• If settings.json cannot be written, the questions come back on the next start.
• A tip covers the lower right corner of the page until it is closed.
• The builds are not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on the first run.
• The other limitations of 1.2.0 still apply.

Downloads

File	Use
WindowCraft-1.3.0-x64-setup.exe, WindowCraft-1.3.0-arm64-setup.exe	Installer with a Start menu entry
WindowCraft-1.3.0-x64.msi, WindowCraft-1.3.0-arm64.msi	For Intune, GPO or msiexec /qn
WindowCraft-1.3.0-x64-portable.exe, WindowCraft-1.3.0-arm64-portable.exe	Runs without installing
SHA256SUMS.txt	Checksums
THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md	Licenses of the bundled Rust crates and of LAME