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Plans for native Windows support (without WSL)? #331
Description
Hi! First of all, thanks for building xtool, it's a great project.
The installation docs currently say that Windows users can use xtool via WSL, which requires setting up USB passthrough with USBIPD (and sometimes extra workarounds, like the AFCClient.Error.muxError issue).
I wanted to ask: are there any plans to support Windows natively, without going through WSL?
A native build would make setup simpler for Windows users, since it would avoid WSL and USB passthrough, and could talk to the device through the Apple Mobile Device support that's already installed with iTunes/Apple Devices.
If this isn't planned, are there any known blockers (for example, the Swift toolchain on Windows, usbmuxd, or the Darwin SDK generation)? I'd be happy to help investigate or test if that's useful.
Thanks!
Activity
kabiroberai commentedon Oct 20, 2026
My main concern is that Windows support will require continual maintenance, and I'm not super familiar with the Windows stack + it'll require more effort to test it. You're certainly welcome to maintain a fork with Windows support, and I'd be happy to help give pointers as needed.
Technically speaking: the only major blocker is that we depend on swift-nio in a few places, which I think only has partial support for Windows atm. Other issues should be easier to work around.