Installing shot2code

shot2code is a Windows desktop application. Every download is attached to its release on the releases page. Release tags in this hub are product-prefixed: shot2code-vX.Y.Z.

System requirements

• Windows 10 or Windows 11, 64-bit (x64).
• About 600 MB of free disk space after unpacking. The app carries its own Python backend and a headless Chromium, so there is no runtime to install.
• One model provider: a GitHub Copilot sign-in — which the desktop app can do by itself, with no command-line tool installed — or a Gemini, Anthropic or OpenAI API key, or your own endpoint through a Copilot SDK BYOK connection. Without one, generation fails fast — the rest of the app still opens.
• There are no macOS or Linux builds. On those platforms, run the project from source.

Which download?

The .exe.blockmap and latest.yml files produced by the build are inputs for the auto-updater, not downloads for people. They are attached to the release, and appear in its complete file listing, but the download cards never offer them.

Every published build is mirrored on that releases page. Not every one of them shipped all four files — published checksums arrived with 0.3.1, and some earlier builds had no MSI — so the page lists exactly the files each release actually carries rather than four placeholders.

Verify before you install

The Windows builds are not code-signed, so there is no signature to check. Compare the hash instead:

Get-FileHash .\shot2code-<version>-x64.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Then compare the result with the matching line in SHA256SUMS.txt from the same release. PowerShell prints uppercase hex; hexadecimal comparison is case-insensitive. If a hash does not match, stop and report it privately.

Option 1 — installer (.exe) — recommended

1. Download shot2code-<version>-x64.exe and verify its hash.
2. Run it. Windows SmartScreen will warn — see About the SmartScreen warning.
3. It installs per-user (no administrator rights needed) and adds a Start-Menu shortcut and an entry in Apps & features.

This is the only build that updates itself.

Option 2 — MSI

1. Download shot2code-<version>-x64.msi and verify its hash.
2. Install it. This is the per-machine layout, intended for managed deployment.
3. The app detects a Program Files install, disables self-update, and reports in Settings that upgrades are administrator-managed. Deploy the next MSI to upgrade.

Option 3 — portable (.zip)

1. Download shot2code-<version>-x64.zip and verify its hash.
2. Right-click the ZIP → Properties → tick Unblock → Apply, then extract it to a folder you control.
3. Run shot2code.exe from the extracted folder. Keep the folder together — the frozen backend and the bundled Chromium live beside the executable.

Portable builds do not self-update. Replace the folder with a newer build.

First launch

The splash screen stays until the bundled Python backend answers its health check. From 0.3.3 that is normally a few seconds — about 5–11 seconds on a warm machine — because only the core routes have to be ready; generation, evaluation and project tooling load on first use, and the Chromium and Copilot checks run in the background. A fresh portable copy, or the first launch after an update, takes longer (around 40 seconds) while Windows scans the newly written tree. The shell gives up after 90 seconds rather than waiting forever.

The bundled headless browser also gets a larger budget on its first launch, for the same reason: that is when antivirus software scans it. A generation started while the backend is still warming up is not lost — the connection is accepted and replayed once the generation routes have loaded.

If the window stays blank or never appears, read the log — it records backend startup, how long readiness took, renderer load failures, crashes and console errors:

%APPDATA%\shot2code-desktop\shot2code-backend.log

In the app, Help → Support → Open diagnostic logs opens that folder for you. Include the tail of that file if you open an issue, and see TROUBLESHOOTING.md for the symptom-by-symptom runbook.

About the SmartScreen warning

The builds are unsigned, so Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" the first time you run an installer, and downloaded files carry the mark of the web. The warning is expected; it is not evidence that the download is good or bad.

After verifying the checksum, either:

• click More info → Run anyway, or
• right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → Apply, then run it.

Updates

• Per-user .exe installs check the public GitHub Releases feed. Settings shows the running version, the update state, download progress, a Check now button, and Restart & install when a download is ready.
• The install runs silently and relaunches the app. Before it starts, the bundled backend, Copilot CLI and Chromium process tree is stopped and that shutdown is verified. If it cannot be confirmed, the update is not started and stays retryable rather than replacing a running app.
• The installer repeats that check itself. An app-side guard cannot protect a machine that is still on an older build, so from 0.3.2 the NSIS installer runs a pre-install safeguard before it uninstalls or replaces anything: it finds processes by executable path under the installed resources\backend folder, stops each tree, and confirms none is left. It never kills by process name, so an unrelated program with the same executable name is untouched. If the tree cannot be confirmed stopped, the install is aborted — with a message you can act on, or a distinct exit code for a silent install — and it writes diagnostics to %TEMP%\shot2code-installer-preinstall.log.
• MSI installs are administrator-managed and do not self-update.
• Portable builds do not update; download a new ZIP.

Uninstalling

• Installer / MSI: Settings → Apps → Installed apps → shot2code → Uninstall.
• Portable: delete the extracted folder.

Uninstalling does not delete your projects, and neither does an upgrade. They live in a local database outside the installation directory, and the installer is explicitly configured not to remove application data:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\shot2code\history.sqlite3

Delete that folder as well if you want the project history gone. Individual projects can be removed from Recent projects inside the app — deleting a project removes it and its versions from the device.

Where things are stored

See DATA-HANDLING.md for the full list, including every network destination.