A customizable desktop for Windows 10 and 11: a top bar and taskbar in the style of Pop!_OS, a fast search, desktop widgets and Nova, an AI copilot that sits at the edge of the screen, talks with you live and keeps track of longer tasks. Deutsche Version
🤖 PopWin was brought to life with the help of AI. It is developed together with Claude (Anthropic), which wrote most of the code, tests and documentation – see How PopWin is made.
Screenshots use example data.
- Setup and “What's new” – an animated welcome screen walks you through theme, taskbar shape, Nova (yes or no), performance and autostart. After every update PopWin shows the news once in short points.
- Themes – a gallery with preview cards and an editor for your own themes: accent colours, background, opacity,
corners and glow with a live preview. Share them as a
.popwin-themefile. New built-in theme: Neon Night. - Top bar – drag the icons into any order, right-click an icon to open its menu, a new microphone panel (level, mute, input device, which app is listening), a user area with lock, switch user and sign out, a keyboard language indicator and buttons for screen projection and the snipping tool
- Taskbar – red badges for new notifications, a floating dock, new apps pop in softly, and Home, search, player, Nova, trash and desktop can be dragged to any place, even to the other side of your apps
- Start menu – five layouts with a preview: grid, list, large tiles, slim strip and search first
- Audio – quick settings and the volume panel switch between output and input devices, so your default microphone is one click away
- Notifications – a Do not disturb button right at the bottom of the notification panel
- Settings – sorted into categories with an overview page that shows your theme and switches it from a dropdown, a bar designer for the top bar and taskbar, and Share & Presets to save, export and import your setup
- Performance – a new page with the levels Saver, Balanced and Beautiful, a game mode that lets the bars rest behind full-screen games, and optional “Windows relief” for background apps such as Widgets or Game Bar
- Games – the bars no longer shrink a full-screen game, the mouse never stutters in games like Fortnite, and the Windows key brings the bars in quickly and smoothly
- Top bar and taskbar – on every monitor or only some, synced or set up per monitor; full width, just as wide as the icons or as a floating dock, left, centered or right, auto-hide at the screen edge. The clock goes exactly where you click in a little picture of your screen.
- Taskbar like Windows – the same icons as the Windows taskbar (Store apps, Java games, web apps), fixed order, drag to rearrange, live preview on hover, notification badges, pin anything by dragging it onto the bar
- Top bar your way – choose and drag the icons on the right; a click or right-click opens volume, microphone, network, quick settings or notifications
- Toolbar above the taskbar (beta) – Home, search, Nova and the trash float in their own bar, always or only on hover
- Search – apps, system actions and Win+R commands as you type, voice input, and
?for a question to the AI. If nothing fits, the AI suggests actions that run only after your yes. - Home menu – your pinned apps in one of five layouts, opens with the Windows key; just start typing to search
- Nova – an AI copilot in a side panel, see below
- Widgets – 13 desktop widgets (clock, system monitor, notes, stopwatch, network, disks, media, …), each with its own size, colour, layer and opacity. They stay on the desktop when you press Win+D.
- Quick settings – dark mode, do not disturb, Bluetooth, focus timer, audio output and input, per-app volume with live levels
- Wallpapers – works with Wallpaper Engine, or plays its own animated backgrounds behind the desktop icons
- PopWin apps – a tabbed file explorer with preview, an editor, a terminal and PowerShell Studio with a debugger; as a beta, each one can replace its Windows counterpart (off by default, Settings → Beta)
- Full screen aware – games and videos get the screen to themselves; the bars come back when you leave
- Safe – the real Windows taskbar comes back when PopWin ends, even after a crash
- Polish – built-in and custom themes, light and dark, smooth animations, three performance levels, English, German, Spanish and French
Nova lives at the edge of the screen and stays open while you work.
- Live conversation – with voice turned on, Nova runs on Gemini Live: the microphone listens only while you speak, stops by itself when you pause and shows what it understood as you talk. Nova answers with her voice and the chat shows it as text. Without voice, Nova uses the regular models and the microphone dictates.
- Her voice – 30 voices and a speaking style in your own words, e.g. “calm and a bit slower”. Or just tell Nova how she should sound.
- Artifacts – for longer jobs Nova keeps an artifact: a task with a checklist and due date, a note, a monitor that checks something on a schedule, or a small tool (a Python script). You see them in their own tab with progress, history and code, can create and edit them yourself, and get a notice when a monitor finds something new.
- Connections – Nova can connect to services such as your OVH account. You type the keys into PopWin itself, never into the chat; they stay in the Windows Credential Manager and Nova never sees them.
- On your PC – Nova can look at the screen, open programs, read files and, if you allow it, use mouse and keyboard. Anything risky asks first and shows the real command, never just Nova's summary. Tools that change things ask every time, and the approval always shows their code.
Nova needs a free Gemini API key. It is stored in the Windows Credential Manager, not in a settings file.
- Download
PopWin Setup.exefrom the releases and run it, or takePopWin Portable.zipfor a USB stick. - On the first start an animated setup walks you through theme, taskbar, Nova, performance and autostart. Every choice can be changed later in the settings, and Settings → Setup runs the setup again. Later starts open no windows, except a short “What's new” after an update.
- Press the Windows key for the Home menu, Alt + Space for the search, Ctrl + Alt + N for Nova.
Quit: Settings → Setup → Disable PopWin, or the emergency shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Shift + K. PopWin brings the Windows taskbar back by itself, even after a crash; if it is ever missing, the Start menu entry Windows-Taskleiste wiederherstellen restores it.
| What | How |
|---|---|
| Windows key | Opens the Home menu; start typing to search. Combinations like Win+D keep working |
| Search | Alt + Space or the magnifier. ? question asks the AI, cmd or shell:startup work like Win+R |
| Dark mode | Type dark mode in the search, or use the quick settings |
| Volume | Scroll on the speaker icon, click it for the slider and the output or input device |
| Microphone | Click the microphone in the top bar for level, mute and the input device |
| Top bar icons | Drag them with the mouse to reorder; right-click opens the same menu as a click |
| Themes | Settings → Themes: pick a theme or build your own; the overview page switches it from a dropdown |
| Pin an app | Drag a file, program or shortcut onto the taskbar, or right-click a running app |
| Widgets | Right-click a widget for the gallery: add widgets and adjust each one |
| Settings search | Type in the settings title bar, or ? to change settings in plain words |
| Monitors | Settings → Top bar or Taskbar: which bars on which screen, same look everywhere or per screen |
| Languages | Settings → General → Language, or automatic like Windows |
PopWin itself sends nothing anywhere. Only what you ask the AI (search, voice input, Nova) goes to Google's Gemini API,
with your own key. Nova's memory, chat and artifacts stay on this PC; Settings → Privacy shows everything in one place
and can turn Nova's memory off or delete it. To detect an internet connection PopWin opens a connection to
1.1.1.1:443 every 30 seconds without sending data.
- Hidden tray icons: Windows does not let other programs host them, so the arrow opens the real Windows overflow.
- Right-click on files: PopWin's menu is for the free desktop and its bars. On files the Windows menu stays, because only Windows knows the entries of installed programs.
- Full screen: a window covering a whole monitor sends the bars behind it on that monitor only.
For working on PopWin itself; to use it, take the Setup or the Portable version above.
python -m venv .venv && .venv\Scripts\pip install -r requirements.txt
.venv\Scripts\python main.py # run
.venv\Scripts\python tools/quiet_tests.py tests.log -m unittest tests.test_logic # all tests
.venv\Scripts\python build.py # Setup.exe + Portable.zip in release/The tests run on a separate, invisible Windows desktop, so windows, focus and mouse clicks never touch your screen.
They never use real accounts, the network or the Windows Credential Manager. tools/readme_shots.py renders the
screenshots above with example data.
main.py Start, wiring, safe exit
core/ Windows calls, system status, Nova's brain, tools, artifacts and live voice
ui/ Top bar, taskbar, search, menus, settings, Nova panel, widgets
explorer/ editor/ terminal/ studio/ PopWin apps
themes/ Plain QSS files, dark and light
assets/lang/ Translations; a new language is one JSON file
tests/ Logic and UI tests
PopWin was brought to life with the help of AI. It is developed with Claude, an AI by Anthropic, using Claude Code: most of the code, tests and documentation were written by Claude. @michig-code had the idea, decides what gets built, uses PopWin every day, tests every version on real PCs, reports bugs and maintains the project.
Every change goes through the same checks: several hundred logic and UI tests on an invisible desktop, and a scan that stops a release if it would contain a key. Found a bug? Please open an issue.
PopWin is not affiliated with Microsoft, System76 or Google.
GPL-3.0, because PopWin uses python-chess. Third-party libraries keep their own licences.