Install on Windows

v1.0 is out. This page gets it running; if it does not, tell us what breaks.

There is no installer and no runtime to install first. It is a folder you copy. This page gets it running; Getting started takes it from there.

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. 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, and it is 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. Now set it up. Everything from here is the same on every platform, so it lives in one place: Getting started, from step 2.

Two things worth knowing on Windows

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 settings that build does not read. When you point vPinOps at Visual Pinball, check the path names VPinballX_BGFX64.exe. Get Visual Pinball

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, 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.

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

C:\vPinOpsData\ appears when you set your folders in Getting started; the rest is there from the first run.

Keep them separate, as above. An update replaces the program folder and never touches your content. Where things are has the full map.

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.