WinInspect

Window inspection for Windows and Wine
Strix the Window Owl inspects Windows and Wine desktops on your behalf.

About

WinInspect is a remote Windows desktop inspection and automation daemon. It provides programmatic access to window hierarchies, screen capture, input injection, process management, clipboard, and registry — on both Windows 10/11 and Wine 10/11/12.

The system is designed as a core + broker + clients architecture:

• Core (libwininspect_core) is deterministic, concurrency-safe, and idempotent.
• Broker/Daemon (wininspectd.exe) exposes a local IPC API (Windows Named Pipes).
• Clients: CLI, Win32 native GUI, and API clients can run concurrently without interfering.

This repository is scaffolded to follow the WineBotAppBuilder (WBAB) lifecycle:

• wbab lint
• wbab build
• wbab test
• wbab package
• wbab sign
• wbab smoke
• wbab discover

Download

Pre-built releases are available on the GitHub Releases page.

Package	Description
WinInspect-Installer-*.exe	NSIS installer for Windows 10/11 and Wine 10.x/11.x
WinInspectPortable-*.zip	Portable edition — extract anywhere, no installation
wi-portable-*-win-x64.exe	Go portable CLI (Windows)
wi-portable-*-linux-x64	Go portable CLI (Linux)

⚠️ Don't mix deployment methods. Pick one and stick with it. Installing via winget then trying to update via Chocolatey (or replacing a package-manager install with the portable ZIP) will leave behind stale registry entries, duplicate binaries, and broken shortcuts. If you want to switch, uninstall the old version first.

Release builds are code-signed through the SignPath Foundation. Checksums (SHA256) are provided for all artifacts.

Quick start (developer)

Prerequisites

Install the toolchain via winget (Windows 10/11 built-in):

# One-time setup
winget install Kitware.CMake
winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools `
  --override "--wait --quiet --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended"
winget install GoLang.Go              # for portable CLI
winget install NSIS.NSIS              # for installer packaging

Verify the toolchain:

cmake --version          # >= 3.22
where cl                 # MSVC compiler
go version               # >= 1.21 (optional)
makensis /VERSION        # NSIS (optional)

Build + test

cmake -S . -B build -DWININSPECT_BUILD_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build --config Release
ctest --test-dir build -C Release --output-on-failure

Run daemon + CLI (Windows)

build\Release\wininspectd.exe
build\Release\wininspect.exe top
build\Release\wininspect.exe capabilities
build\Release\wininspect.exe check-update

Package installer (optional)

cmake --build build --config Release
makensis -DVERSION=dev -DBUILD_SRC=build\Release -DDIST_DIR=dist tools\wininspect.nsi

Linux / WSL (cross-compile for Wine)

sudo apt install cmake mingw-w64 wine
cmake -S . -B build \
  -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=Windows \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++ \
  -DCMAKE_CROSSCOMPILING_EMULATOR=/usr/bin/wine \
  -DWININSPECT_BUILD_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build

Submodule Policy

This project follows a Submodule Co-Evolution Policy.

• Submodules may be modified locally for development and testing.
• Pushes to upstream submodule repositories are strictly forbidden.
• Upstream synchronization happens via issues and patches.

For full details, see docs/SUBMODULE_POLICY.md.

To ensure your local guardrails are active, run:

./scripts/submodules/enforce-policy.sh

Architecture

See:

• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
• docs/PROTOCOL.md
• docs/CONTRACTS.md
• formal/tla/

Privacy

WinInspect does not collect, transmit, or store personal data. See PRIVACY.md for the full privacy policy.

License

Source-Available: PolyForm Noncommercial License + Commercial License

WinInspect is source-available under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.

• Personal / hobby / educational use: Free. Audit the source, learn from it, use it for personal projects.
• Internal company use: NOT free. Companies must purchase a commercial license.
• Commercial resale / embedding: Requires a commercial license.

See LICENSE for the full license text and COMMERCIAL_LICENSE.md to purchase a license.