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windowix/awesome-windows-on-linux has 85 GitHub stars and 16 forks. GitHot measured +1 stars in 24 hours, +1 in 7 days, and +2 in 15 days. Last checked 2026-11-13 17:05 UTC. Last push 2026-11-02.

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85 stars16 Forks +1 in 24h

Measured star growth

in 24h
+1
in 7 days
+1
in 15 days
+2
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Net star changes over overlapping periods, not daily totals. Missing measurements are left blank. Stars measure attention, not software quality.

About

Awesome Windows on Linux Projects

Learning

README.md

Original

Awesome Windows on Linux (Only funny)

Awesome Windows on Linux Logo

A collection of projects that bring the Windows experience to Linux — from hardcore reverse engineering to hilarious pranks.

en-US | zh-CN

Awesome License: MIT

This list collects open-source projects that replicate, simulate, or parody the Windows ecosystem on Linux. Projects are grouped by form (CLI tools, GUI apps, system interaction, low-level/reverse engineering), and each carries an intent tag — [Practical] for things you can actually use, [Prank] for things you should not run on a production machine.

Contents

Info

I don't know what to put here either, haha.

Awesome Windows on Linux

Intro: A curated collection of open-source projects that replicate, simulate, or parody the Windows ecosystem on Linux.

Restores: Curating and organizing projects that recreate Windows.

CLI Tools

Command-line tools that restore Windows terminal commands on Unix.

Linux-Autoplay [Prank]

Intro: A USB drive notification fix experience for Linux users

Restores: AutoPlay (USB notification repair)

PowerShell-For-Linux [Practical]

Intro: A PowerShell-style shell interpreter for Linux, implemented in pure Go with zero third-party dependencies, supporting both the 5.X and 7.X command sets with a Chinese/English UI.

Restores: The Windows PowerShell command-line experience: an object pipeline, 128 built-in cmdlets with 77 aliases, and .ps1 scripting, letting you drive Linux with PowerShell-style commands.

WSL-for-Linux [Prank]

Intro: A WSL-like experience for Linux users

Restores: Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Winget-for-Linux [Prank]

Intro: A shell script wrapper that brings the Winget CLI experience to Linux.

Restores: Winget from App Installer (https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nblggh4nns1)

aptx

Intro: An enhanced apt wrapper that recommends similar software after installing/removing packages.

Restores: The 'bundleware recommendations' nuisance experience when installing software.

cmd [Practical]

Intro: A faithful reimplementation of Windows cmd.exe written from scratch in pure C89, with zero POSIX dependencies, running on any Unix.

Restores: The Windows cmd.exe command interpreter (batch scripting, pipes/redirection, 40+ built-in commands).

Windowshit [Practical]

Intro: A collection of Windows command-line tools rewritten in Rust, running cross-platform.

Restores: 24 Windows command-line tools (ipconfig / ping / robocopy / systeminfo...).

GUI Applications

Graphical apps that recreate Windows desktop interfaces.

Devices Manager for Linux [Prank]

Intro: A device manager for Linux

Restores: Device Manager

Lindows Troubleshooting [Prank]

Intro: I fixed the bug that prevented using Troubleshooting on Linux and wasted time. Please be cautious when opening this program, as it will waste one precious minute of your life.

Restores: Troubleshooting

  • License: MIT
  • Authors: BobbyChengCN0518
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: zh-CN / en-US
  • Intro video: (pending)

Lindows_Control [Prank]

Intro: I fixed the bug where the control panel couldn't be used on Linux. The language can be configured via a JSON file, with zh and en being the default supported languages

Restores: Control

  • License: MIT
  • Authors: BobbyChengCN0518
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: zh-CN / en-US
  • Intro video: (pending)

Linux-Auto-Fix [Prank]

Intro: A handy auto-repair tool for Linux users

Restores: Startup Repair

Linux-Sticky-key [Prank]

Intro: A sticky key experience for Linux users

Restores: Windows Sticky Keys

Linux-Store [Prank]

Intro: A Microsoft Store experience for Linux users

Restores: Windows Store

LinuxDefender [Prank]

Intro: A non-functional antivirus software for Linux

Restores: Windows Defender

Ribbon-File-Manager

Intro: use GTK to replicate the Ribbon File Manager from Windows 8 to Windows 10 on Linux

Restores: Windows8.x/10 Ribbon File Manager

UMessageBox [Practical]

Intro: I fixed the bug where UWP pop-ups didn't show up on Linux

Restores: UWP pop-up on Windows 10

WinSAT for *nix

Intro: A standalone software designed to provide a Windows-style system performance assessment and experience index.

Restores: Windows System Assessment Toolkit

Windows Search [Prank]

Intro: A standalone app that brings the poor search experience from Windows to the *nix world

Restores: Windows Taskbar Search and Indexing Features

WindowsWidget-for-Linux

Intro: A Linux desktop widget panel modeled after the Windows 11 Widgets board; it slides in from the right edge of the screen and integrates news, weather forecasts, and a date/clock display, while offering a graphical settings interface.

Restores: Windows Widget

  • License: MIT License
  • Authors: phillin-liu
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: zh-CN
  • Intro video: (pending)

Animated-plasma-task [Practical]

Intro: Adds Windows-style animations and decorations to the Linux (KDE) taskbar.

Restores: The Windows taskbar animation experience (icon press scale, minimize bounce, window entry/exit animations, hover highlight and indicator bar).

  • License: GPL-2.0
  • Authors: SkyShadowHero
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: en-US / zh-CN
  • Intro video: (pending)

Explorer-for-Linux [Prank]

Intro: A desktop program that deeply replicates the Win11 file-management experience on Linux.

Restores: The Win11 File Explorer interface (including the classic 'Not Responding' experience).

Explorer-for-Linux (xbodwf) [Practical]

Intro: A Windows 11 style file manager for Linux, built with Electron + Vue and WinUI-style web components.

Restores: The Win11 File Explorer experience (Fluent/WinUI look and feel).

  • License: GPL-3.0
  • Authors: xbodwf
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: zh-CN
  • Intro video: (pending)

linux-winver [Prank]

Intro: I fixed the bug where Linux non-KDE desktop environments don't have winver.

Restores: winver

mmclinux [Practical]

Intro: A cross-platform tool mimicking the Windows Management Console, built with tkinter.

Restores: The MMC console (MDI child windows, snap-ins, window embedding).

NotepadOnLinux [Practical]

Intro: A standalone program that recreates Windows Notepad on Linux.

Restores: The Windows Notepad interface.

openconsole_linux [Practical]

Intro: A Linux port of Microsoft's Windows Terminal / OpenConsole terminal engine (~95% upstream code), hiding Windows API dependencies behind a lightweight compatibility layer, with a Qt6 terminal-grid frontend.

Restores: Restores conhost.

regedit [Practical]

Intro: A system configuration file browser that maps /etc, ~/.config, and /boot to a registry tree and auto-detects multiple config formats.

Restores: The registry editor interface (left tree + right key/value list).

runbox [Practical]

Intro: A run dialog on Linux that pops up with Super+R, with an Adwaita look following the system theme.

Restores: The Win+R 'Run' dialog.

SAS-for-Linux

Intro: A Windows 11-style Ctrl+Alt+Delete secure attention screen implemented in C++/Qt 6, supporting X11 and Wayland (GNOME/KDE/Sway/Hyprland/Niri).

Restores: The Windows 11 secure attention screen (lock / switch user / log out / change password / task manager + network / accessibility / power).

taskschd4Linux [Practical]

Intro: A Windows Task Scheduler implemented in Python, featuring an MMC-style interface layout and supporting cron and systemd timers.

Restores: Windows Task Scheduler, Most of the UI and behavior

System Interaction

Projects that hook into system services: PAM modules, popups, global hotkeys.

Linux-Activator

Intro: Restored the 'Activate Windows' window (without watermark; installing activate-linux is recommended), and opened up the configuration file and interface to add more restrictions to 'unactivated Linux'.

Restores: Restores the 'Activate Windows' window (without watermark)

adpop [Prank]

Intro: A general-purpose ad-popup service rendered fully from scratch, callable by other software.

Restores: Windows-style malicious ad popups (animated images / video / audio / popup spam / non-closable).

libobscure [Prank]

Intro: Replace the error messages with Windows-style error codes.

Restores: Windows-style error codes.

libschrodinger

Intro: Pops up an "application error" dialog when a program encounters a fatal error.

Restores: The "application error" dialog.

Linux_uac [Prank]

Intro: Recreates Windows UAC (User Account Control) on Linux via a custom PAM module: the screen dims and freezes, then a password prompt appears when you run sudo.

Restores: The Windows UAC dialog (dim & freeze + password check + Yes/No + chime).

Low-level / Reverse Engineering

Binary-format and kernel-adjacent projects: DRM rendering, PE/ELF, system internals.

bsod [Prank]

Intro: A blue-screen demo tool that renders directly on the Linux physical display, grabbing DRM Master, with multi-language and log monitoring.

Restores: The Win10 Blue Screen of Death interface (with QR code).

LinuxForWindows

Intro: A binary conversion tool that offline-converts Windows PE executables into Linux ELF at the file-format level.

Restores: PE / ELF file format structures (header, section table, program headers, dynamic segment).

LSW [Practical]

Intro: A production-grade Linux Subsystem for Windows written in pure Rust, providing 100% architectural and operational parity with Microsoft WSL. Official website & playground: https://lsw.int0.cc

Restores: WSL1/WSL2/WSLg ecosystem on Linux (kernel-level PE execution, lswpath path translation, LSWENV cross-environment pipeline, ConPTY bridge, Smart Dual-Engine Auto-Routing).

  • License: MIT
  • Authors: LING71671
  • Primary language: zh-CN
  • Supported languages: zh-CN / en-US
  • Intro video: (pending)

windows_update_in_linux [Prank]

Intro: A prank program showing a fake Windows update screen: 50% chance of a real update+reboot, 50% chance of a blue screen.

Restores: The Windows update screen (success progress / failure blue screen).

Contribute

Welcome to submit PRs to add more "Windows on Linux" projects. Each entry should include: project link, license, authors, primary/supported languages, a one-line intro, and what Windows part it restores.

Create your own project entry

Run python main.py new, pick a group, and enter a project name when prompted. The script creates the project directory (it prints the generated path) with one JSON file per language.

Generated directory structure:

my-awesome-tool/
├── zh-CN.json
└── en-US.json

Open the project JSON and fill in the fields:

{
  "name": "my-awesome-tool",
  "intro": "",
  "restores": "",
  "license": "",
  "url": "",
  "authors": [],
  "lang_primary": "zh-CN",
  "lang_supported": ["zh-CN"],
  "intent": "practical"
}
Field Required Description
name yes Project display name
url yes Repository URL
intro yes One-line intro
restores yes Which Windows part it restores
license yes Open-source license
authors yes List of authors, each with name and url
lang_primary yes Primary language
lang_supported yes Array of supported languages
video no Intro video link
intent yes Intent tag: practical / prank / mixed

intent is orthogonal to the form-based group: practical = usable/safe, prank = parody/not for production, mixed = both.

After editing, regenerate and validate:

python main.py generate
python main.py lint

Then commit and open a Pull Request:

git add .
git commit -m "feat: add my-awesome-tool"
git push

Create the Pull Request; it merges once all Actions pass.

Troubleshooting

  • lint fails: run python main.py check and python main.py cl to locate the issue.
  • Language asymmetry: each project must have a JSON file for every language present in project-meta/.
  • Removing an entry: delete the project directory, then re-run generate.

License

MIT © 2026 windowix

Generated at: 2026-11-02 03:21 UTC

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