windows app releases

the solstone app for windows 2.0.28

october 17, 2026

Added

you can read recent logs in settings → help and save a copy for a support report.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.27

october 14, 2026

Fixed

on a computer without Chrome, the "add to Chrome" button now opens the store page in your default browser without showing a windows error first.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.26

october 12, 2026

no release notes for this version.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.25

october 10, 2026

no release notes for this version.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.24

october 10, 2026

Fixed

an old wifi address no longer prevents the solstone app from refreshing your journal's current addresses through the private network.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.23

october 9, 2026

Fixed

when your journal's address changes, the solstone app now switches to the new address without pairing again, as long as it can still reach your journal another way after the change. this needs your journal to be updated too.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.22

october 8, 2026

Fixed

the question about replacing a device is now skipped when your journal lists no other paired device. it still appears when another device is listed.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.21

october 7, 2026

Added

when you pair a computer that wasn't already paired and confirm your journal's mark, the solstone app's pairing settings ask "is this replacing one of your devices?" if you choose the device it replaces, this computer continues that device's name and history, and the device you chose can no longer reach your journal. you can also keep both.

Fixed

if windows won't unlock this computer's saved connection to your journal, for example after your windows profile is copied to another computer, the solstone app now lets you pair again, and anything waiting to send stays on this computer. before, it stopped connecting to your journal.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.20

october 6, 2026

Fixed

a pause now lasts until you resume it, or until the time you picked runs out, even if the solstone app quits or your computer restarts. before, a restart, unlocking your computer or waking it from sleep ended the pause.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.19

october 5, 2026

Fixed

browser pages still waiting on this PC now stay here when you unpair. after you pair with a journal and confirm its mark, they go to that journal.
a segment a journal turns away is now held back from that journal only. once you pair with a different journal and confirm its mark, the segment goes to the new journal.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.18

october 4, 2026

Changed

the solstone app no longer calls your journal "solstone". once paired, status names your journal by the two words of its mark, or says its mark is unavailable if the app can't read it. before you pair, the mark row says "your journal".

Fixed

when pairing doesn't go through, the solstone app now asks for a new pairing link from your journal instead of a pairing code. when it asks you to confirm your journal's mark, it now says your journal shows that mark beside the pairing link.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.17

october 3, 2026

Added

the about window now shows the system each one runs on beside the app's and your journal's versions (your journal's once it's updated too), and a copy button puts both lines on your clipboard. "report a problem" now includes those same two lines.

Changed

if you installed solstone with Scoop, the command that starts the app is now solstone-app. solstone is the name of the journal's command line. the start menu shortcut is still called solstone.

Fixed

a failed attempt to pair with another journal no longer makes the app show "not paired" while it is still connected to your existing journal.
applying a staged update from the command line now leaves the app running after it restarts.
links in your journal window that go to another website now open in your web browser. links within your journal stay in the journal window.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.16

october 2, 2026

Fixed

when you pair through your journal's private network and choose "that doesn't match", the app now uses that connection to remove this PC from your journal. before, removal could time out, leaving the PC listed.
on a PC that runs Hyper-V, WSL or Docker, windows can set aside the ports the app uses to talk to itself. when that happened, opening solstone again while it was already running quietly did nothing. the app now uses ports below the range windows usually sets aside.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.15

october 1, 2026

Fixed

this is a security fix: after you pair, the app now asks you to confirm your journal's mark, and nothing waiting on this PC goes to the journal until you confirm it's your journal. before, what was waiting could start going to the journal as soon as pairing finished, before you could check the mark, even to a journal that wasn't yours. if you paired before this update, you won't be asked.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.14

september 30, 2026

Changed

segments from this PC now reach your journal with this PC's time zone attached.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.13

september 28, 2026

Fixed

security fix: when you paired this PC while your journal's private network was on, even over your own wifi, the solstone app sent your pairing link's one-time secret through the relay before checking it had reached your journal, so someone who could sit where the relay sits could have read the secret and used it to pair their own device. it now checks first that it's talking to your journal. please install this update before you pair again. if you paired this way, open your journal's network app and remove any device you don't recognize, including under "nothing added yet".

the solstone app for windows 2.0.12

september 26, 2026

Fixed

pressing pair to connect this PC to your journal no longer closes the solstone app.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.11

september 25, 2026

Changed

the solstone app now always removes a segment from this PC once your journal confirms it has it, or that you removed it from your journal, so the "keep segments" choice in local storage is gone. anything an earlier version kept goes on the first sync after this update, once your journal has confirmed it.
the need-attention count now includes every segment set aside on this PC, not only ones since the app last started.

Fixed

a segment the app set aside as needing your attention is no longer removed when a later one is set aside under the same name.
if the solstone app restarted partway through a segment, a file it saved after the restart could be dropped when an earlier one had the same name. it's now kept, and counted with the segments that need your attention.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.10

september 24, 2026

Fixed

the solstone app now removes a segment from this PC only after checking your journal's reply against this PC's copy of every file in it. before, if you set local storage to keep segments for a number of days, a segment past that many days was removed without that check, so a file added to it later could be removed before it reached your journal.
if you set up the solstone app with its installer or winget, a portable copy from this release on (the zip download, or Scoop) no longer switches which copy starts when you sign in to windows. if an older portable copy switched it, quit the solstone app from its tray menu, update that copy (download the new zip, or run scoop update solstone), then open the copy you set up with the installer or winget to switch it back.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.9

september 23, 2026

Changed

a pairing link can now point at a public IPv4 address you can reach your journal at, not only one on your local network. pairing over the internet works the same way as pairing at home: the link still carries your journal's fingerprint, and this PC still checks it before trusting anything.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.8

september 20, 2026

Changed

the private-browsing setting now names only the two browsers whose private windows showed private mode in the title: Edge 153 and Firefox 156, set to English. Chrome 153 and Brave 153 don't show private mode in their titles, and other browsers are not matched, so private windows in those reach your journal. the match uses English wording, so a browser set to another language may not match. private windows you opened in Chrome, Brave or another browser before this update may already be in your journal. to keep every window of a browser out of your journal, add that browser to the excluded apps in privacy settings.

Fixed

the private-browsing setting no longer keeps an ordinary window out of your journal just because its page title contains "private browsing" in Firefox or the letters "tor" in Brave, as in history, inventory, storage or tutorial. those windows were kept out even though they were not private.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.7

september 19, 2026

Changed

the private-browsing setting now names the four browsers it knows, Chrome, Edge, Brave and Firefox, and says plainly that it can get the match wrong in either direction: it can miss a private window, which then reaches your journal, and it can keep out an ordinary one. to be certain about a whole app either way, add it to the excluded apps in privacy settings.
the solstone app on windows no longer calls itself sol. settings, the about window, the window titles and the update messages all use the current name now, and the global pause shortcut is described as pausing intake rather than the app.

Fixed

the exclusion activity line under privacy settings now counts the right thing. it reported the frames where an excluded window was blacked out as frames kept out of your journal; those frames do reach your journal, with the window blacked out. it now leads with the frames that were kept out whole, and counts the blacked-out ones separately.
the welcome on the settings home now shows once and then goes away. it used to stay for good on a PC you never paired with a journal.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.6

september 18, 2026

Added

pairing now shows your journal's mark when it succeeds, so you can check that this PC connected to the journal you meant.

Fixed

the mark comparison is now read as one clear description by screen readers.
when something other than your journal answers where it is expected, the tray now tells you what happened instead of leaving the mismatch hidden.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.5

september 16, 2026

Added

if something other than your journal answers where it's expected, the solstone app now tells you right away, with a way to see what answered and compare its mark against your journal's own.

Fixed

when this PC's saved pairing stops working, the solstone app now asks you to pair again instead of staying on "waiting to sync". when your journal just can't be reached, the app still shows "waiting to sync" and keeps trying. restarting the app tries the saved pairing again.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.4

september 16, 2026

Changed

internal stability improvements.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.3

september 15, 2026

Changed

internal stability improvements.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.2

september 13, 2026

Changed

the tray now uses the held-dash mark while intake is paused.

Fixed

a retrying backlog now reads "waiting to sync" instead of "needs attention." the attention state is reserved for material that has been set aside.
when pairing cannot reach your journal over your private network, the app now asks you to join the same wi-fi and try a fresh pairing code instead of showing a generic failure.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.1

september 11, 2026

changed

pairing errors now explain what went wrong and what to try next.
the recovery action in settings and the tray menu is now called "restart intake".
you can open a support report from the tray menu with app version and status details filled in.

the solstone app for windows 2.0.0

september 8, 2026

changed

the solstone app on windows has moved to the 2.x version line.
what you share from windows now lands through the journal's current linked-device connection.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.11

july 16, 2026

Fixed

sol no longer re-sends segments your journal has already finished processing. earlier versions kept re-sending them indefinitely, spending bandwidth and CPU on work that was already done. sol removes a local copy only after your journal confirms it holds the segment; without that confirmation, the copy stays on your machine.
sol no longer stalls waiting on large replies from your journal. anything over about a megabyte previously hung until a timeout instead of arriving.
the private link sol uses to reach your journal now rejects malformed or oversized data cleanly instead of letting it disrupt the connection.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.10

july 8, 2026

Fixed

sol's Windows taskbar and title bar icon now keeps a cream center behind the mark, so the word stays readable on light, dark, and busy desktop backgrounds.
when something needs attention, sol now gives you a restart action in the tray and on the home pane instead of leaving recovery to a relaunch.
privacy exclusions now show the state sol actually saved. changes wait for the confirmed setting, failed saves roll back visibly, and Microsoft Store apps are labeled as one shared entry.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.9

july 4, 2026

Fixed

pausing and resuming observing no longer risks stopping capture permanently. the same applies to disk hiccups (a full disk, an antivirus briefly holding a file): sol now retries in the background and recovers on its own instead of needing a relaunch.
what sol saves now lands on the right day and time in your journal. segments were previously filed under UTC, which shifted evening hours onto the next day for anyone west of it.
one problematic segment can no longer hold up everything behind it. a segment your journal repeatedly declines is set aside and counted in health while the rest keep uploading.
pairing with a different journal now cleanly stops the previous connection, so nothing keeps uploading to the journal you left.
sol now reliably notices sleep, wake, and display changes. these system notifications previously never reached it.
system audio keeps flowing when you switch where sound plays — headphones, a dock, or bluetooth.
the video timeline inside each segment now matches the wall clock, so what you saw lines up with what you heard.
if your exclusion rules ever fail to load, sol now drops those frames entirely rather than falling back to default rules. privacy fails closed.

Changed

the app now calls itself sol: sol is the app, your journal is the memory, and solstone is the platform it all comes from.
a friendlier first-run introduction when sol isn't paired with a journal yet.
audio is now stored as a single compact file per segment (about 100x smaller), and your pairing credentials are encrypted at rest with Windows' built-in protection.
removed the start menu item from the tray that could never be enabled.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.8

july 2, 2026

Fixed

the observer now works on displays with unusual screen resolutions. some virtual machines and monitor modes use sizes that previously showed a "screen" source error; solstone now handles them automatically.
the observer no longer flickers its status when your screen is still. a static screen — reading, watching, or stepped away — now stays "observing" instead of flipping to "starting."

Changed

setup now installs Microsoft's WebView2 runtime for you when it is missing, so solstone opens on a clean or minimal windows install without a manual step. most machines already have it and see no change.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.7

july 2, 2026

Fixed

the observer now starts on a clean windows machine that has never had the visual c++ runtime installed.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.6

july 1, 2026

Added

open your journal right from solstone: a new "Open Journal" entry point in the tray and in settings opens your paired journal in its own window, already signed in over your existing connection. no browser, no separate sign-in.

Changed

pairing your journal over the private network now uses a one-time pairing link your journal opens for you. there is no shared code to copy or time. pair once and solstone connects to your journal from anywhere: over the encrypted relay when you are away, and directly when you are home.
app icon refreshed to the current sol mark.

Fixed

the pending count on the home pane no longer freezes partway through an upload; it now counts down as each item finishes.
settings no longer flickers every second; it now only redraws when something on the screen actually changes.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.5

june 28, 2026

Added

reach your journal from anywhere. when your journal has private network access turned on, solstone now connects to it over the encrypted relay while you're away from home, not only on the same wi-fi. it keeps using a direct connection when you're home and switches to the relay when you're not, with nothing to set up beyond pairing. the relay only carries sealed traffic between your device and your journal; it never sees what's inside.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.4

june 25, 2026

Added

a home section in settings: a status overview (what solstone is doing, your journal, your sources) plus quick actions in one place: pause or resume, pair your journal, open your local folder, and check for updates.

Changed

settings now has a section menu down the left side, like Windows Settings, instead of one long scroll. pick a section to jump straight to it, and the window reflows as you resize it, collapsing the menu to a button when narrow.
settings feels more at home on Windows 11: native scrollbars, keyboard focus rings, your accent color, and rounded controls.
the status view is clearer and more honest: it shows "stored on this pc" with an open-folder button instead of an internal path, tells you when you are not yet paired instead of a confusing "0 delivered", shows each source's state as a simple label, and lists apps by their friendly names when you exclude them.

Fixed

drop-down menus stay open long enough to pick an option. they could close before your click landed.
you can now select and copy your local storage path.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.3

june 24, 2026

Changed

Settings and About now feel native to Windows 11: they use the Windows system font, follow your light or dark mode, sit over a soft translucent backdrop, and use native scrollbars.
these windows no longer act like web pages: right-click menus, rubber-band scroll, pinch zoom, and keyboard zoom stay out of your way.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.2

june 24, 2026

Added

the tray icon now shows whether your data is reaching your journal: a full sun when you're observing and connected, a half sun when you're observing but not connected to a journal yet (so "observing" never overstates what's happening).

Changed

the app is now named "solstone" (lowercase) everywhere you see it — taskbar, Start menu, installer — to match the brand.
a new rounded app icon, built for Windows (rounded tile, sharp at every size).
crisper tray icon at small sizes.
opening solstone now brings up the Settings window so you can see it's running, instead of quietly going to the tray. (launching at login still stays quiet in the tray.)

the solstone app for windows 0.2.1

june 24, 2026

Fixed

Settings and About now open correctly. in 0.2.0 these windows could come up blank; they now show as intended, so you can pair to your journal and manage observing from Settings.

Changed

the update check is now a bare request for the version manifest — it carries nothing about the version you have or your install. it was already private; this trims the last detail off the wire.

Added

a local diagnostic log under your Solstone app data, to make support easier. it stays on your machine — nothing is ever sent anywhere — and it records only events and errors, never the contents of what's observed.

the solstone app for windows 0.2.0

june 23, 2026

Added

solstone now runs on Windows. it lives in your tray, pairs to your journal from a pairing link, and observes your screen and audio alongside you, sending what it observes to your journal over a private, signed connection.
the installer is signed by sol pbc, so Windows can verify it came from us. it installs just for you, with no admin prompt.
sensitive apps and private-browsing windows are left out of what's observed by default. you decide what's included from Settings.
you're in control of observing from the tray and Settings: pause for a set time or until you resume (with a global hotkey), stop entirely, pick which microphone is used or turn the mic off, and set how long already-delivered data stays cached on your machine before it's cleared.
solstone keeps itself up to date over a signed, private channel. the update check carries no identifier about you or your machine and reaches only solstone's own update service. an Updates section in Settings lets you check now, set how often to check, download in the background, and see when it last checked.