Install on Windows

SolarLayout for Windows is not yet code-signed (Windows EV certificates are deferred until external Windows customers ship). To avoid Chrome and Edge flagging the unsigned .exe heuristically as "this file may be dangerous", we ship it inside a .zip.

The actual installer is a standard NSIS .exe — once extracted, it behaves identically to any other Windows installer.

Download the Windows installer.

Install steps

1. Download SolarLayout_<version>_x64-setup.nsis.zip from the download page.
2. Right-click the .zip → Extract All → choose a destination (Downloads works fine).
3. Double-click the extracted SolarLayout_<version>_x64-setup.exe.
4. Windows SmartScreen prompt: you'll see "Windows protected your PC". This is expected for unsigned installers. Click More info, then Run anyway.
5. Follow the NSIS installer wizard. Defaults are fine for most users.
6. The installer adds SolarLayout to the Start menu and creates a desktop shortcut.

First launch

Open SolarLayout from the Start menu. You'll see the sign-in screen on first launch — click Sign in (or Create account), finish in your browser, and the app picks up automatically. See Signing in for the step-by-step.

If SmartScreen prompts again on the first launch of the installed app (not just the installer), click More info → Run anyway the same way.

Updates

SolarLayout checks for updates on launch and offers a one-click "Restart to update" banner when a new release is available. There is no separate updater app.

The auto-updater fetches signed manifest files over HTTPS — the update payload itself runs through Tauri's Ed25519 signature verification, independent of OS code signing.

Uninstall

Use Settings → Apps → Installed apps → search for "SolarLayout" → click the ... menu → Uninstall. The NSIS uninstaller removes program files; your sign-in in %APPDATA%\SolarLayout\credentials is left in place — delete that folder manually if you also want to remove the saved sign-in.

Why the .zip wrapper?

Chrome's Safe Browsing service and Windows SmartScreen flag any unsigned .exe download with a "this file is dangerous" prompt, which a first-time user (rightly) reads as a virus warning. Wrapping the installer in a .zip makes the browser fetch it as an archive, so the heuristic doesn't trigger.

This is the same trick GitHub Desktop, Discord, and several other non-signed dev tools used pre-signing. The trade-off is one extra extraction step in exchange for a non-scary download.

Once we ship a Windows EV code-signing certificate (planned post- launch), the wrapper goes away and you'll download a signed .exe directly.