Windows Installation

CoWork OS ships a 64-bit Windows installer. There are three ways to install it. Pick the PowerShell installer unless you have a reason not to: it verifies the download against the published checksum and avoids the SmartScreen prompt a browser download gets.

PowerShell installer

Open PowerShell (not as administrator) and run:

irm https://coworkosapp.com/install.ps1 | iex

coworkosapp.com/install.ps1 serves scripts/install-windows.ps1 from the main branch. It stops at the first failed check without installing anything:

1. Downloads the release's updater metadata (latest.yml) from GitHub Releases and reads the installer name and SHA-512 from it.
2. Downloads CoWork-OS-Setup-<version>.exe and checks its SHA-512 against the metadata.
3. Runs the installer silently for the current user, so no administrator prompt appears, then opens CoWork OS.

Re-run the same command to update. To pass options, run the script as a script block:

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm https://coworkosapp.com/install.ps1))) -Version 0.5.60 -NoLaunch

To read the script before running it, download it from the link above, open it in any editor, then run powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File install-windows.ps1. The script does not change SmartScreen, Defender or execution-policy settings.

Installer and SmartScreen

CoWork OS installers are not code signed. Windows SmartScreen shows Windows protected your PC for unsigned programs downloaded in a browser, because the browser marks the file as coming from the internet. If you download CoWork-OS-Setup-<version>.exe from GitHub Releases:

1. Run the installer. When SmartScreen appears, click More info.
2. Check that the App line shows CoWork-OS-Setup-<version>.exe (the publisher shows as unknown because the file is unsigned), then click Run anyway.

You can compare the file with the published checksum first: the sha512 value in the release's latest.yml is the base64 SHA-512 of the installer.

[Convert]::ToBase64String([Security.Cryptography.SHA512]::Create().ComputeHash([IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("$HOME\Downloads\CoWork-OS-Setup-0.5.60.exe")))

Antivirus warnings

Some antivirus products flag new, unsigned Electron installers on reputation alone, before many people have downloaded a given build. These are false positives. If your antivirus quarantines the installer, check the checksum as above, then restore it or use the PowerShell installer or npm. Please open an issue with the product name and the detection name so we can report the false positive to the vendor.

npm

npm install -g cowork-os
cowork-os

• Run npm install -g cowork-os and npm uninstall -g cowork-os from %USERPROFILE% or another neutral folder, not from %APPDATA%\npm\node_modules\cowork-os, to avoid EBUSY lock errors.
• On Windows ARM64, the first launch may take longer while native modules are rebuilt; setup falls back to x64 Electron emulation when ARM64 prebuilds are unavailable.
• If the native rebuild fails, install Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 (C++) and Python 3, then retry.
• If startup logs show ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND ... dist/renderer/index.html, reinstall the latest package and see Troubleshooting.

Uninstall

Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps, find CoWork OS, and choose Uninstall. Your settings and data stay in your user profile. Some updates that add native dependencies need a full uninstall before reinstalling; the release notes say when.

First start

Choose how to power AI; Getting Started walks through the first task.