WinPodX — Windows apps as native Linux windows

Click an app.<br>Word opens. That's it.

Native Linux windows for every Windows app — real icons, real<br>WM_CLASS, pin-to-taskbar. FreeRDP RemoteApp + dockur/windows.<br>Zero config.

beta · v0.7.4<br>MIT<br>Python 3.9+<br>no telemetry

Install — latest stable, any supported distro

bash — set up WinPodX

Copy$ curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kernalix7/winpodx/main/install.sh | bash<br>→ pulling dockur/windows in rootless Podman…<br>→ unattended Windows install + RemoteApp / agent setup…<br>✓ 56 Windows apps discovered & registered as native .desktop entries

Get started →<br>Star on GitHub

Windows About / Performance Monitor / PowerShell each in their own Linux window, alongside the WinPodX Apps grid.

command to set up

UI languages

25<br>parallel RDP sessions

trackers, ever

How it works

No manual VM wrangling. WinPodX provisions everything on the first app click.

Install & setup

One command pulls a Windows container (dockur/windows) in rootless Podman, runs an unattended Windows install, and applies the RemoteApp + agent setup.

Apps auto-discovered

First boot scans the guest — Registry App Paths, Start Menu, UWP/MSIX, Chocolatey, Scoop — and registers every app with its real icon as a Linux .desktop entry.

Click & launch

Click the app like any native one. It opens in its own Linux window via FreeRDP RemoteApp — pinnable, alt-tabbable, file-associated. No full desktop.

Why not just RDP, a VM, or Wine?

WinPodX keeps real Windows compatibility while feeling native.

WinPodXFull-screen RDPBare VMWine

Per-app native windows✓desktop onlydesktop only✓<br>Real Windows compatibility✓✓✓partial<br>Taskbar icons + file assoc.✓✕✕limited<br>One-command setup✓manualmanualper-app<br>Linux apps in Windows menu✓✕✕✕

See all features →

What it does

Each Windows app becomes its own Linux window — pinnable, alt-tabbable, file-associated, both directions.

Seamless app windows

RemoteApp (RAIL) renders each app as a native window — no desktop

Per-app taskbar icons via WM_CLASS matching

Double-click .docx → Word opens; open a second file and it lands in the already-running app

Multi-session RDP: up to 25 independent sessions

Multi-monitor RAIL by default — drag a window to a second screen, keep working

Reverse-open

Linux apps appear in the Windows "Open with…" menu, by default

Correct per-app icons in both Windows chooser dialogs

Round-trips the file open back to host xdg-open

Auto-discovers host apps + MIME from freedesktop standards

Zero-config launch

First click auto-provisions config, container, desktop entries

First-boot discovery registers every app with its real icon

Registry App Paths, Start Menu, UWP/MSIX, Chocolatey, Scoop

Backends: Podman (default), Docker, manual RDP

Peripherals & sharing

Clipboard (text + images), sound, printers — on by default

Home directory shared as \\tsclient\home

USB drives auto-mapped; live USB device passthrough

Smart DPI scaling auto-detected from your desktop

Automation & resilience

Auto suspend / resume; optional pod auto-start on login

Self-heals a stalled RDP guest (UNRESPONSIVE → recover)

Password auto-rotation; Windows disk auto-grow

Health checks + auto-fix via winpodx doctor --fix

Lean & private

Near-zero Python deps — stdlib only on 3.11+

No telemetry, ever

Multilingual UI (en / ko / zh / ja / de / fr / it)

Start-menu-style Qt6 GUI with a live Dashboard + a lightweight system tray

Works on

One-line install across the major Linux families.

openSUSEFedoraFedora AtomicDebianUbuntuRHEL / Alma / RockyArchNixOSAppImage (any distro)

Needs hardware virtualization. WinPodX runs Windows in a KVM-backed<br>container — an x86_64 / aarch64 CPU with virtualization extensions, 8 GB+ RAM<br>(12 GB+ recommended), and ~30 GB free disk. First install takes ~5–10 minutes<br>(Windows ISO download + Sysprep + OEM apply). Full requirements →