🧪 Beta testing. Things may still change and some features are still experimental. Your feedback helps most right now.
Press Ctrl+Alt+P on a window for a small live view of it that stays on top. Turn on Interactive in the view's menu (experimental) and you can use the app right inside the view: click, type, scroll, select text and open menus. The real window stays hidden out of the way, so a video, chat or document stays at hand in a corner while you work.
Enhanced hover keeps hover effects working in browsers and apps like VS Code and Discord. For an app that doesn't work well through a view, such as a game, a click on its view can bring the real window back instead, and it hides again when you switch away. What works where lists the details.
Windows
- Pin on top, with an optional colored border
- See-through, with a default level, Ctrl+Alt+wheel under the pointer, and solid again while the mouse is over it
- Click-through
- Borderless, fill the display, dark title bar
- Remember a program's setup for its windows from then on
Picture-in-Picture
- Live views of a window, a whole display or part of the screen
- Crop, zoom, resize, presets and saved sources
- Keep the original hidden and the view updating
- Use apps through a view, with Enhanced hover and middle-click scrolling (experimental)
- Per-view frame limit, opacity, position lock and click-through
- Minimize views to the taskbar, hover preview and reading lens
- Views that move away from text and pictures (experimental)
Anchors
- Floating buttons that bring a window back with a click
- Drop files on them, rest the pointer for a live preview
- Added and removed for you as windows get covered
- Take their windows off the taskbar, or hide them all for now
Arrange
- Nine places on the screen, the next display, an exact position and size, the previous position
- Move and resize by holding Alt or Win and dragging, with edge snapping
- Roll up to the title bar (experimental), send to the back
Effects (experimental)
- Dark mode, and one that keeps pictures and video as they are
- Glass that fades only the background
- Crop a window, or shrink it to a live tile
Everyday use
- A toolbar on title bars, a window menu on Ctrl+right-click, and a full tray menu
- Shortcuts you can change, and a searchable list of every action
- Settings that look like Windows 11's, in light or dark
- Programs to leave alone, or the only ones to work on
- Pauses during games and full-screen apps
- Runs as administrator when you want it to, for apps such as Task Manager
- Put everything back with Ctrl+Alt+R; windows come back even if WinScreen stops unexpectedly
- Automatic updates, and settings you can move to another PC
- English, 简体中文 and 繁體中文
Download WinScreen-…-x64-Setup.exe from Releases and run it. It works on Windows 10 (version 2004 or later) and Windows 11, on 64-bit Intel or AMD PCs (x64). See what works where for other systems and for what each feature can and can't do.
You don't need anything else installed, and it runs without administrator rights. WinScreen lives in the system tray.
The installer isn't signed, so Windows may say it doesn't recognize it. Choose More info, then Run anyway. To remove it, go to Settings → Apps → Installed apps in Windows.
- Click the window you want to change.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+T to pin it on top, Ctrl+Alt+P for a live view, or Ctrl+Alt+A for an Anchor.
- Click the tray icon for Settings, or right-click it for every command.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+R to put every window back the way it was.
| Do this | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Pin or unpin on top | Ctrl+Alt+T |
| Open or close a live view | Ctrl+Alt+P |
| Add or remove an Anchor | Ctrl+Alt+A |
| More or less see-through | Ctrl+Alt+Down / Up |
| Switch default see-through on or off | Ctrl+Alt+O |
| Click-through on or off | Ctrl+Alt+C |
| Put this window back | Ctrl+Alt+U |
| Put every window back | Ctrl+Alt+R |
The User Guide explains every feature.
The project exists purely out of passion, and to actually solve problems: it offers free, specialized alternatives to closed source, paid apps, built with the help of AI agents. Compatibility and reliability might be questionable, but that is where community help is needed most. I can't discover every issue with just my own use and my agents, even though AI is powerful and fast at patching issues. Yet if you still think it is AI slop, then it is. I can't and won't bother changing what you think. Simply find another reliable alternative (if any exists, without the use of AI).
PowerToys is actively maintained, yet it emphasizes the breadth of features and lacks targeted enhancements. WinScreen exists as a complement that specializes in certain Windows utilities. It is not here to replicate PowerToys, which would be pointless.
WindowTop is what inspired this project. However, it is closed source and paid. WinScreen aims to offer a free, open source option for people (and myself) who want features that are locked behind paywalls. On top of that, without the constraints of a business, WinScreen gets to update rapidly and without burden, so I aim to respond and iterate quickly, fixing bugs and adding features people actually need (with thorough tests, I hope).
Many other projects I have found are either discontinued, paid, or real AI slop that doesn't get updated and leaves issues I found on Day 1 open, and their GitHub is a mess. There simply doesn't exist an option that offers free, open source, targeted enhancements with continuous support at this time.
I will try my best to. Yet as a passion-driven, non-profit project, community support is a huge boost for me. I can't guarantee it will be maintained constantly, but even then it is MIT licensed, so anyone can fork it and keep it alive. That's the spirit of open source!
The project is fully open source. Anyone can inspect the code (or tell AI to analyze it) and build it themselves. Turn automatic updates off and analyze the code with AI if you want extra security.
Open source doesn't mean absolutely safe, but everything is out in the open for anyone to check, question or point out problems. I welcome any security concerns you report.
Turn on automatic updates in Settings and WinScreen installs new versions when you close it. To update by hand, close WinScreen and run the newer installer. Your settings stay as they are.
WinScreen is made by DarkLian with the help of AI agents. The best way to help is to tell us how it works for you. Open an issue to share an idea, report a problem, or mention something small that bugs you. See Contributing for what helps most.
If WinScreen is useful to you, you can support it on Ko-fi.
You need the .NET 10 SDK named in global.json. Run .\build.ps1 -SkipInteractive, and the installer appears in dist\release.
WinScreen isn't signed. Free code signing from SignPath Foundation needs a project to be more widely used first, so we'll apply again later.
- Who's involved: DarkLian writes and reviews WinScreen's code, with help from AI agents, and approves every release. Nobody else can change the code or publish a release.
- Privacy: WinScreen doesn't send anything about you or your PC anywhere. It only goes online when you turn on automatic updates or choose Check for updates, and then it just asks GitHub for a newer version.