Install on Windows

Windows gets the desktop app, vike-desktop.exe, and vike-cli.exe, the command-line surface. Both are cross-built for x86_64-pc-windows-gnu in the release's own windows job and need no runtime shipped beside them. Expect five minutes: a download, a checksum, a folder, a double-click.

Requirements

A GPU with a Vulkan driver — the released binary was run on a Windows box and enumerated its real Intel GPU through Vulkan — and the Segoe UI faces under C:\Windows\Fonts, which vike_app_core::fonts looks for first. Details on Requirements.

No daemon, runner or data-service .exe is published: the release's host lane builds those for Linux only. To run the backend on a Windows box, use the container — Install with Docker. vike-cli.exe is the exception and does ship, which is what lets an MCP client on this box launch vike-cli mcp as a local subprocess — see Client setup. It still needs something to talk to: its backtest tools want a vike-datahub server and its live tools a running node, neither of which has a Windows binary.

Steps

1. Download and verify

Take vike-desktop.exe, vike-cli.exe if you want the command line, and SHA256SUMS from the release. The manifest covers every asset, and the Windows lines are in it because the windows job wrote its own part and the publish job verified that part before merging it. Check the file:

(Get-FileHash .\vike-desktop.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash
Select-String vike-desktop.exe .\SHA256SUMS

2. Make the project folder

Every setting, credential and program-written file lives in one folder, and the binary finds it by walking up from the working directory for the nearest settings\ directory (crates/vike-model/src/state_path.rs's PROJECT_SETTINGS_DIR).

$R = 'C:\vike-trader'
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$R\bin", "$R\settings\state\logs", "$R\market_data" | Out-Null
Copy-Item .\vike-desktop.exe "$R\bin\"

bin\ is where the tools a project runs live (vike_model::state_path::PROJECT_BIN_DIR), so the executable sits there and the walk from bin\ finds settings\ one level up. If you would rather launch from anywhere, set VIKE_SETTINGS_DIR=C:\vike-trader\settings: it names the directory outright and beats the walk.

3. First launch

Start it from the project root — a shortcut whose Start in is C:\vike-trader, or a terminal cd'd there:

cd C:\vike-trader
.\bin\vike-desktop.exe

The window opens maximised, titled — live. Before it draws anything the app runs the one startup sequence (vike_boot::boot): refuse a removed environment variable, resolve settings\ once, load the credential store, load the four settings files, then log its build identity and what it resolved. With an empty settings\ it starts on compiled-in defaults and every venue on paper — absent credentials are the live gate. To point it at a node instead, name one:

.\bin\vike-desktop.exe --observe <host>:7879

It takes VIKE_TRADEHUB_OBSERVE_KEY from settings\secrets.env, and from the environment when the store has none (vike_app_core::backend_registry's fill_node_keys_from_env — a gap-fill, never an override: a store entry wins). The key must match the daemon's byte for byte. Leaving the address off is not an error: it falls through to the configured node and then to the local default, the window opens, and the status bar says whether it connected.

Verify

The rolling log lands at settings\state\logs\, prefixed vike-desktop (crates/vike-desktop/src/main.rs's file_prefix, not the executable name); its first line is the identity line — git <sha> clean, built <time>, <rustc>, <target> — which names the commit you are running. If the log appeared beside the executable instead, the walk found no project: check that settings\ sits beside bin\ and that you launched from inside the folder.

Next steps

• Your first chart — pick a symbol, see a live chart.
• Quickstart: first backtest — the Studio dispatches the run to a data service; the demo tape and vike-cli init come from the container's tools on Windows, run against the same folder.
• Observe mode — how the app is pointed at a node.

Troubleshooting

• SmartScreen blocks the launch. The binary is unsigned; verify the SHA-256 and choose to run.
• Every venue on paper and the log is beside the .exe. No settings\ above the working directory — see Troubleshooting.
• The node answers bad mac. The observe key is absent or differs from the daemon's. The app takes it from settings\secrets.env, or from the environment when the store has none.
• A blank window or no adapter. wgpu found no Vulkan device; update the GPU driver.