Windows Installer (real progress + zero-click updates)

What it is

TWO Windows install artifacts, layered (2026-08-15):

• Omniscio-Installer-<version>.exe — the branded bootstrap stub (~2MB), the PRIMARY download. A fully custom frameless Omniscio window in the brand Aurora/glass language (soft aurora backdrop, the orb + OMNISCIO wordmark drawn LIVE so they're crisp at any DPI, an install location you can edit OR pick with a Browse button — it opens the native Windows folder chooser (preselecting your current folder) and appends Omniscio to the folder you choose, so you never type a path — and one Install button; the exe + taskbar carry the orb icon): it checks the drive has enough free space first, then downloads the current release from the update feed with a real byte percentage AND a real measured time-left, verifies its SHA-512 against latest.yml BEFORE running anything, installs silently per-user with an honest "working" animation (no fabricated time), then shows a "You're all set" screen with a Launch button — the Discord-style one-click experience with zero Windows-wizard chrome. Failures (offline / checksum mismatch / installer error / a too-full drive) show a plain-English message with a Try Again button and a "Get the full installer instead" link. See bootstrap-installer-contract.md.
• Omniscio-Setup-<version>.exe — the full NSIS installer (~450MB), no longer listed on the download page (since 2026-09-01 — visitors kept picking the slow download when the stub gives the same install). It still ships with every release: the stub's "Get the full installer instead" link reaches it for offline installs, and it is the engine the stub + auto-updates drive silently. Re-engineered 2026-08-14 from first principles: the old fake "bouncing" progress bar over an empty log (with copy apologizing that "that's normal") and the forced clicks on every auto-update are gone.

Where to find it

The installer lives on the Omniscio download page, where the branded bootstrap stub is the one Windows download. The full NSIS installer is no longer listed there; if the stub cannot finish, its "Get the full installer instead" link opens the release page that carries it. Updates arrive through the in-app update banner, and uninstalling goes through Windows "Add or remove programs".

How it behaves

What a FRESH install looks like (the full NSIS wizard)

1. Welcome — branded "Welcome to Omniscio" page (Omniscio sidebar art), two short sentences, Next. No license click-through page.

2. Who it's for — "all users" (needs admin) vs "only for me" (no admin needed; the default for a fresh per-user install).

3. Folder choice — pick the install location (deliberately kept so users can avoid OneDrive/locked folders — see the Mark Cebul incident in installer-progress-display-contract.md).

4. Install with REAL progress — a determinate progress bar with live percentage and megabyte counts ("Unpacking files 65% (1187 / 1825 MB)...") over a visible log that narrates each step (unpack, file moves, shortcuts, registration) as it happens.

   On a machine missing the Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime, this step ALSO offers to install it — an optional one-time item, since Omniscio already ships the copy it needs. Windows may ask for permission; choosing Yes finishes it. Setup never waits on that prompt for more than five minutes: if it goes unanswered the wizard carries on and the log says the runtime was skipped, with a note that it can be installed later.

5. Finish — "Run Omniscio" checked by default; a Safe Mode launcher shortcut is also created inside the install folder (runs the same exe with --safe-mode).

What an AUTO-UPDATE apply looks like (zero clicks)

Clicking Restart Now on the update banner (app-update-notifications.md) quits the app and runs the same installer with --updated:

• The welcome and folder pages are SKIPPED — it goes straight to the live-progress screen.
• When the install finishes, the completed page auto-advances and Omniscio relaunches itself — the user clicks nothing from "Restart Now" to the updated app being back.
• The quiet path is unchanged: an update that applies on app QUIT (the "Later" flow) runs silently with no window at all.

Uninstall

Windows "Add or remove programs" → Uninstall. On a real uninstall (not an update) it asks whether to ALSO delete your data (sessions, settings, caches) — defaulting to No so a reinstall keeps everything. Data moved via the DATA_DIR override must be removed by hand (the prompt says so).

Uninstalling does NOT remove your sessions' working copies. An isolated session works in a git "worktree" — a private copy of your project — created in a <your-repo>-worktrees folder beside the repo it belongs to, not in Omniscio's data directory. The uninstaller cannot see that folder, so every worktree survives it, and each one until it is removed still holds a branch and any uncommitted changes that session had. That is deliberate (they belong to your repos, not to Omniscio, and a reinstall should find them intact) but it means a machine you are trying to reclaim disk on will keep that space until you clear the <repo>-worktrees folders yourself — one per project you have run isolated sessions against. Delete a folder only after checking that its branch's work has landed or been saved; anything committed only there lives nowhere else.

On macOS and Linux there is no uninstaller, and no data prompt either. Both platforms ship as a drag- or double-click-to-run artifact, so removing the app is a manual action and nothing else is installed alongside it:

• macOS — the .dmg is a drag-install; uninstalling is moving Omniscio from Applications to the Trash.
• Linux — the AppImage is self-contained; uninstalling is deleting the .AppImage file you run. (Make it executable first with chmod +x; that is the whole install.)

Your data is left behind on every platform, and nothing prompts you about it. Sessions, settings, caches and logs live in a data folder OUTSIDE the app — ~/Library/Application Support/omniscio on macOS, ~/.config/omniscio on Linux, %APPDATA%\omniscio on Windows (data-folder-recovery.md has the full picture, and Settings → General → Data Folder shows the exact path on your machine). The Windows uninstaller is the only one that ever offers to clear it; on macOS and Linux you delete that folder yourself. That matters beyond disk space: the EULA makes uninstalling the act of terminating the agreement and says your locally stored data remains on your device until you delete it, so a mac or Linux user who uninstalled has ended the agreement and still holds every session.

Session working copies are separate again. The <repo>-worktrees folders described below sit beside your repos and survive uninstall on every platform, for the same reason.

For agents

How it works

• The real progress bar + live log come from a version-pinned pnpm patch to electron-builder's NSIS templates (patches/app-builder-lib@26.15.3.patch): Nsis7z::ExtractWithDetails (reports true unpack %) replaces the no-progress Nsis7z::Extract, and the install section no longer forces the detail log dark.
• The page flow, copy, zero-click update behavior, and uninstall prompt live in build/installer.nsh; the branded art regenerates via scripts/gen-installer-art.mjs.
• Everything is locked by installer-progress-display-contract.md and its guard test — read the contract BEFORE changing any of it.
• macOS (.dmg drag-install) and Linux (AppImage) have no comparable wizard; the portable EXE shares the patched extraction but manages its own lifecycle (no in-place auto-update).
• The bootstrap stub is native/win/bootstrap-installer.rs (single-file Rust, ZERO crates — raw Win32/GDI/WinHTTP/BCrypt FFI), built by scripts/build-bootstrap-installer.mjs into the committed resources/bin/OmniscioInstaller.exe, Azure-signed with the other bundled helper exes, and copied out to dist/Omniscio-Installer-<version>.exe by the win32 branch of the afterAllArtifactBuild hook — which also writes installer-meta.json (unpacked size, for the stub's honest install progress; published as a no-cache FEED, uploaded last). The download page prefers the stub and falls back to the full Setup for pre-stub releases. All locked by bootstrap-installer-contract.md and its guard test.

Related

App Update Notifications covers the in-app update banner whose Restart Now button drives the zero-click apply described here. Portable Backup covers the one-file encrypted export and import that is separate from the uninstall prompt's offer to also delete your data.