Install on Windows

Windows does everything. The wheel, import, screens, OpsLink and Steam games all run here today.

There is no installer and no runtime to install first. It is a folder you copy.

Install it

1. Download vPinOps-win-x64.zip from Releases.

2. Unzip it at C:\.

   The zip contains a vPinOps folder, so you end up with C:\vPinOps\app\. Unzip it anywhere else and everything still works — the paths below just change to match.

3. Double-click C:\vPinOps\app\vPinOps.exe.

   Nothing appears full-screen yet. What you get is a tray icon in the notification area, down by the clock. That icon is how you talk to vPinOps from now on — it is also the only way to quit it.

   It creates %USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\ on this first run: your config, your run log, and a generated OpsLink password.

   Double-click it the first time — do not start it from a script

   The firewall prompt in the next step only appears for an app you started yourself. Launch it the first time from a scheduled task or a remote shell and Windows writes the block rule without ever asking you.

4. Say yes to the firewall.

   Windows asks whether to let vPinOps communicate on your networks. Allow it on private networks. This is what lets your phone reach it later, and it is the one step that quietly ruins the rest if you skip it.

   If you dismissed the prompt, Windows remembers

   A dismissed prompt is written as a block rule and it sticks. vPinOps keeps running and keeps telling you its address, and nothing on your network can reach it.

   The tell is exact: it answers on the cab itself but times out from anywhere else. That is the firewall every time, not a fault in the app.

   To see whether the block rules are there:

   Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName '*vPinOps*' | Select-Object DisplayName,Direction,Action

   To fix it, in PowerShell as Administrator:

   Get-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName '*vPinOps*' | Remove-NetFirewallRule
   New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'vPinOps' -Direction Inbound -Action Allow -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 7833 -Profile Private

   That opens port 7833 to your local network deliberately — that is what OpsLink is. It is behind a password and the Private profile keeps it off networks Windows considers public.

5. Open Settings from the tray icon and check the network.

   That window does one job: it makes OpsLink reachable. Port, password and Listen on — that is everything this window holds, deliberately, because those three are exactly what you cannot fix from a phone that cannot connect.

   Leave all three as they are unless something else already wants port 7833.

   Your paths are not in this window

   VPX, Tables, PinMAME and the rest are set in OpsLink, in a browser — along with your screens and your library. (Mapping a controller is the one thing that is neither: it is in the same menu as Settings.) Get the network working here first; everything else happens there.

6. Check your phone can reach it.

   The run log names the address every time it starts:

   remote: LISTENING on http://0.0.0.0:7833  (open http://192.168.4.58:7833)

   Open that in any browser on the same network. Sign in with the password in %USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\remote-password, then change it in Settings — it is generated to be typeable on a phone, not to be strong. More: connecting to OpsLink.

7. In OpsLink, open Settings and point it at your stuff.

   Settings → Where your stuff lives. Press Fill these in for me and it fills in the suggested layout for you:

   • Tables → C:\vPinOpsData\tables
   • VPX settings → C:\vPinOpsData\visualpinball
   • PinMAME and Your content as well

   Then set VPX yourself — point it at C:\vPinOpsData\visualpinball\app\VPinballX_BGFX64.exe using Browse…. The button deliberately leaves this one alone: vPinOps does not install Visual Pinball, so it will not write a path to a file it has not checked is there. It is also the one path you cannot skip — without it the page says Not ready to play.

   Change any of them — an existing library, a second drive — nothing refuses to work if you ignore the suggestion. Nothing is saved until you press Save settings, and folders under your content root are created for you when you do.

   What the PinMAME box is actually for

   It matters only if you keep your ROMs in one shared folder. vPinOps reads it to check a table’s ROM is there before launching, so it can tell you what is missing instead of dropping you into a black screen. If every table carries its own pinmame\roms\ you can leave whatever the button put there — nothing looks in it. It is not passed to Visual Pinball; VPX has its own setting for the shared folder. See ROMs and nvram.

   A cab can have two Visual Pinball builds and only one of them is ours

   The older Windows-only VPinballX.exe will still find, show, launch and return tables — but your backglass and DMD cannot be placed on it, because screen configuration is written as ini keys that build does not read. Check the VPX path names VPinballX_BGFX64.exe.

   There will be two folders called tables, and they are not the same

   Visual Pinball ships its own tables\ folder inside visualpinball\app\, holding the calibration tables it comes with — screen size, nudge, elasticity — which are genuinely worth running when you set a cabinet up.

   C:\vPinOpsData\tables\ is your library. Point Settings and Import at yours. Point them at Visual Pinball’s and you import its calibration tables and wonder where your collection went.

   You do not install VPinMAME

   Visual Pinball’s PinMAME plugin resolves ROMs itself. Put the ROM .zip in the table’s own pinmame\roms\ or in your shared PinMAME roms\ folder, still zipped — see ROMs and nvram.

8. Now put some tables in it.

   That works the same on every platform, so it lives in one place: Importing.

What ended up on your disk

C:\vPinOps\app\              the program. Ours. Replaced wholesale when you update.
C:\vPinOpsData\              your content. Never touched by an update.
    tables\                      one folder per table
    pinmame\                     the shared ROM fallback
    .inbox\                      tables sent from another device land here
    visualpinball\               Visual Pinball's own settings
    visualpinball\app\           Visual Pinball itself
%USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\      your config, your run log, your OpsLink password

The split is ours versus yours, not programs versus data. Visual Pinball is yours, which is why it sits under the content root rather than beside our program.

If the program and your library shared one folder, an update would mean picking our files out of yours, and “uninstall it” would stop being “delete the folder”. Split, both problems go away.

The dot in .inbox is load-bearing

Folders beginning with a dot are skipped by the library scan. Rename it and a half-finished upload appears on the wheel as a table you cannot play.

Where things are

The program	C:\vPinOps\app\
Your content	C:\vPinOpsData\
Config	%USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\config.json
Run log — read this first when anything is wrong	%USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\last-run.log
OpsLink password	%USERPROFILE%\.vpinops\remote-password
Uploads waiting to be imported	C:\vPinOpsData\.inbox
Visual Pinball’s own settings	wherever VPX settings points in Settings — by default C:\vPinOpsData\visualpinball\VPinballX.ini

Updating

Quit vPinOps from the tray, replace C:\vPinOps\app\ with the new one, start it again. Your content and your config are in the other two places and are not involved.

Uninstalling

Quit it, delete C:\vPinOps. Your tables in C:\vPinOpsData are still yours — delete that too if you want them gone, and %USERPROFILE%\.vpinops for the settings.

Quitting it

Use the tray icon. vPinOps deliberately outlives its own windows, so closing a window does not quit it — and while it runs it still holds port 7833, which is what stops the next copy starting.

What is not here yet

• A one-click install. It is a folder you copy.