sol — solstone home

Windows app releases

these are the Windows app's own changes: installer, tray, settings, and auto-update — sol on your Windows PC.

download solstone for Windows →

solstone for Windows 0.2.11

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.10

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.9

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.8

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.7

Fixed

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

solstone for Windows 0.2.6

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.5

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.4

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.3

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.2

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.)

solstone for Windows 0.2.1

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.

solstone for Windows 0.2.0

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.