How Windhawk can be deployed with pre-set mods?

[Anixx]

Can Windhawk be quickly deployed to a new system witha set of pre-configured mods?

[m417z]

I was thinking about adding an export/import feature, but currently, there's no official way. You can install the mods manually once, and then use that Windhawk instance for the deploy. For the non-portable version, both files from the program data folder and registry entries will have to be copied.
I haven't tried it, but I believe that it's enough to copy over the following:

%ProgramData%\Windhawk\Engine\Mods
%ProgramData%\Windhawk\ModsSource
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\Mods
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\ModsWritable

Let me know whether that works for you.

[Chaython]

I was thinking about adding an export/import feature, but currently, there's no official way. You can install the mods manually once, and then use that Windhawk instance for the deploy. For the non-portable version, both files from the program data folder and registry entries will have to be copied. I haven't tried it, but I believe that it's enough to copy over the following:

%ProgramData%\Windhawk\Engine\Mods
%ProgramData%\Windhawk\ModsSource
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\Mods
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\ModsWritable

Let me know whether that works for you.

Please add an import/export or cloud sync. [Uniget added a cloudsync via github]

[rickhantz-orig]

Backup works, haven't tried restore yet.
Any problem backing up whole WindHawk reg key?

BackupWindHawk.bat:
xcopy %ProgramData%\Windhawk\Engine\Mods .\Engine\Mods
xcopy %ProgramData%\Windhawk\ModsSource .\ModsSource
reg export HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk .\Reg\WindhawkHKLM.reg /y
pause

RestoreWindHawk.bat:
rem @echo off
IF EXIST ".\Windhawk\Engine\Mods" (
xcopy .\Windhawk\Engine\Mods\ %ProgramData%\Windhawk\Engine\Mods
) ELSE (
ECHO Run backup first/no files found!
)

IF EXIST "\Windhawk\ModsSource" (
xcopy .\Windhawk\ModsSource\ %ProgramData%\Windhawk\ModsSource
) ELSE (
ECHO Run backup first/no files found!

reg import .\Reg\WindhawkHKLM.reg
pause

[jcbyte]

Based on @rickhantz-orig comment.
Backup and Restore works perfectly for me in my unattended setup script with these PowerShell scripts:

Save mods and registry entries into an archive:

$ArchiveFile = "windhawk-config-archive.zip"

$TempDir = Join-Path $env:TEMP ([guid]::NewGuid())
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $TempDir | Out-Null

$WindhawkDir = "$env:PROGRAMDATA\Windhawk"
$CollectedModsDir = Join-Path $TempDir "Mods"
Copy-Item "$WindhawkDir\Engine\Mods" -Destination "$CollectedModsDir\Engine\Mods" -Recurse -Force
Copy-Item "$WindhawkDir\ModsSource" -Destination "$CollectedModsDir\ModsSource" -Recurse -Force

$CollectedRegDir = Join-Path $TempDir "Reg"
New-Item -Path $CollectedRegDir -ItemType Directory -Force | Out-Null
reg export "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\Mods" "$CollectedRegDir\Engine-Mods.reg" /y | Out-Null
reg export "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\ModsWritable" "$CollectedRegDir\ENgine-ModsWritable.reg" /y | Out-Null

$Items = Get-ChildItem -Path $TempDir -Force | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName }
Compress-Archive -Path $Items -DestinationPath $ArchiveFile -Force

And restore from this archive:

# Expand the archive into a temporary folder
$WindhawkArchive = "windhawk-config-archive.zip" # Your created backup archive

$TempDir = Join-Path $env:TEMP ([guid]::NewGuid())
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $TempDir | Out-Null

Expand-Archive -Path $WindhawkArchive -DestinationPath $TempDir 

# Copy the mods into the windhawk folder
$WindhawkDir = "$env:PROGRAMDATA\Windhawk"
$CollectedModsDir = Join-Path $TempDir "Mods"
Copy-Item "$CollectedModsDir\Engine\Mods" -Destination "$WindhawkDir\Engine\Mods" -Recurse -Force
Copy-Item "$CollectedModsDir\ModsSource" -Destination "$WindhawkDir\ModsSource" -Recurse -Force

# Copy the registry back
$CollectedRegDir = Join-Path $TempDir "Reg"
reg import "$CollectedRegDir\Engine-Mods.reg" | Out-Null
reg import "$CollectedRegDir\ENgine-ModsWritable.reg" | Out-Null

# Cleanup the created temporary folder
Remove-Item $TempDir -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

[sangammagariaravind123]

That helped share mods but didn't copy the customisations done in yaml file of each mod. (The settings page of each mod where we can edit the yaml file to customize the parameters - control styles, res vars and style consts). Or did I do some mistake 🤔.

[jcbyte]

@sangammagariaravind123 Customisations to mods are saved in the registry HKLM\SOFTWARE\Windhawk\Engine\Mods, so they should be copied over with this script. Admitted none of my mods have modified settings so I didn't test this.

[e-t-l]

This might be a different question entirely, but I wonder if it would be possible to "export" mods as executables, kind of how AutoHotKey can export AHK scripts as executables that can be run without needing a AutoHotKey.exe installed separately on the system already. I'm imagining if there were a way to analyze a mod and figure out which WH components/hooks/etc are utilized, then package the mod with just those basic WH components/framework required to make it work as a standalone executable...

[happymimimix]

This might be a different question entirely, but I wonder if it would be possible to "export" mods as executables, kind of how AutoHotKey can export AHK scripts as executables that can be run without needing a AutoHotKey.exe installed separately on the system already. I'm imagining if there were a way to analyze a mod and figure out which WH components/hooks/etc are utilized, then package the mod with just those basic WH components/framework required to make it work as a standalone executable...

I also want to export mods as a standalone executable that could work without windhawk!

[decipher3114]

It can be possible, but I don't have plans to implement it. Instead, I have it on my list to have a "lite" version of Windhawk without VSCode and a compiler, so that its size would be around 10 MB instead of around 700 MB. It won't allow modifying or developing mods, but it will be easier and quicker to install for most users. Perhaps it will cover your needs as well.

Instead of packing the whole VSCodium, why not include a simple server in the windhawk itself, which can be commnunicated by the windhawk.net website.

It will be much lighter and faster.

[stamminator]

@decipher3114 There's nothing wrong with the Windhawk GUI. Bundling a stripped down VS Codium makes sense since the GUI involves things like viewing source code, diffs, and editing config files.

[Anixx]

Diffs? Where are the diffs there?

[decipher3114]

@stamminator windhawk.net does the same thing. (and it's more responsive)