Try Omarchy runs Omarchy in a virtual machine. You can explore its apps, themes, and keyboard-first workflow without repartitioning your drive or leaving Windows. Your Linux files persist between sessions.
Get started
- Download and open TryOmarchy.exe. The launcher is about 10 MB and is signed by Brandon South. You can check the signature in the file's Properties > Digital Signatures tab.
- Choose where to keep Omarchy. The default is
%LOCALAPPDATA%\TryOmarchy. Setup may enable Windows Hypervisor Platform and request one restart.
- Set up your own account, or pick the quick start. Your own account is the default. The app then downloads and verifies the graphics runtime and guest image, about 2 GB in total, and starts Omarchy. Omarchy's setup asks for your username and password; the quick start skips that form and signs in as
omarchy / omarchy. Once the desktop opens, press Super+Space for the Omarchy menu and Super+K to see the keybindings.
See the user guide for updates, shortcuts, storage, settings, and removal.
What you can do
- Use the whole desktop. Hyprland, Omarchy's apps, themes, menus, notifications, and screensavers run inside the window.
- Move between Windows and Omarchy. Share text, images, files, and folders through the clipboard and the optional shared folder. Drop Windows files onto an open Files folder or onto an app, such as a browser upload area.
- Use your hardware. Supported graphics drivers can render through VirGL and Venus Vulkan. The launcher falls back to CPU rendering when that path is unavailable.
- Make it yours. Choose a display, audio devices, resource profile, and optional fullscreen or direct-launch shortcuts. Windows Hello for guest
sudo is available for personalized accounts.
- Keep your work. The guest disk persists, with backup, restore, reset, and update controls.
- Take it with you. When you install Omarchy for real, one command brings your settings, apps, files, and projects over from the trial. See moving to a real install.
Watch the Windows demo or read the compatibility guide for the current hardware and application limits.
Before you start
- You need a 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 PC with hardware virtualization enabled. ARM64 Windows PCs are not supported.
- Standard installs use a local NTFS or ReFS drive. The guest and downloads live in the folder you choose. First setup downloads the guest image and a portable graphics runtime.
- GPU acceleration depends on the Windows GPU, driver, and bundled runtime. CPU rendering remains available. This is a virtual GPU, not physical GPU passthrough; check graphics and app limits for specific workloads.
- Keep important guest files backed up outside the VM. Backups and moving an installation are documented separately.
Guides
- Guide index: find help for a specific task
- Using Try Omarchy: setup, keys, settings, storage, updates, SSH, and troubleshooting
- Compatibility: supported hosts, graphics paths, and app limits
- Windows desktop controls: display, input, and host integration
- Guest upgrades, backups, and moving your data
- Changelog and releases
- Contributing: repository layout, build, and test instructions
If something goes wrong, use Create diagnostics... in the tray and open an issue. The user guide explains what it contains.
Under the hood
Try Omarchy uses QEMU on the Windows Hypervisor Platform, an x86_64 Arch guest image, and the WINQ-EMU graphics runtime. The Go launcher handles setup, updates, VM supervision, and Windows integration. See the technical findings, runtime build, guest build, and release process.
To build the launcher with Go, run:
git clone https://github.com/omacom/try-omarchy-windows
cd try-omarchy-windows/app
GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 go build -trimpath -ldflags "-H windowsgui -s -w" -o TryOmarchy.exe .
Credits and license
Try Omarchy for Windows builds on Omarchy, Eduardo's original Try Omarchy app, Jorge Silva's Windows guest builder, WINQ-EMU, and Chainfire's Windows GPU work. Thanks to the dockur/windows project for the Windows development environment.
Scripts and documentation in this repository are MIT licensed. Omarchy and the guest image carry their own licenses; see the third-party notices. The app icon uses the official Omarchy mark, which remains subject to Omarchy's trademark rights.
Looking for the Mac version? See Try Omarchy for macOS.
