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Pulp Engine — Windows Installer (Beta)

The Windows installer (PulpEngine-Setup-<version>.exe, published with each release) runs Pulp Engine on a Windows machine without Docker — file-mode storage, no database, bundled Node.js and Chromium. It exists for quick hands-on trials; the supported, CI-gated evaluation route is Linux Docker (see the evaluator guide). Both paths bundle the same product — the differences are packaging only.

What the installer does

  1. Copies the app bundle plus a bundled Node 22 and Chromium into %ProgramFiles%\PulpEngine.
  2. Generates random 32-byte hex API_KEY_ADMIN / API_KEY_EDITOR credentials and writes %APPDATA%\PulpEngine\.env (plus editor-key.txt so you can find the editor login key again).
  3. Creates Start Menu entries: Start, Stop, Open Editor, Data Folder, Uninstall.
  4. Optional finish-page actions: start the server and open the editor in your browser.

A README-FIRSTRUN.txt with end-user guidance ships into the install directory.

SmartScreen warning

Evaluation builds are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen shows “Windows protected your PC” on first run — choose More info → Run anyway. Some managed corporate endpoints block unsigned executables outright; use the Docker path there. Code signing is a tracked follow-up.

Known issues (beta)

  • Runtime smoke is advisory in CI. The installer build is verified by a gating CI job, but the post-install boot smoke runs advisory-only: on GitHub-hosted Windows runners the staged bundle exhibits a boot hang (pulp.log stops at “Asset binary store: filesystem” and /health/ready never responds) that has not been reproduced reliably outside CI. Isolating it is a tracked follow-up. If your installed instance hangs at start, please report it — and switch to the Docker path for the trial.
  • Windows file-mode test runs are advisory. Local API test runs on Windows can hit spurious timeouts under parallel-worker contention; the gating file-mode suite runs on Linux in CI.
  • Single-user evaluation install. Multi-user on the same machine works (per-user %APPDATA% state) but is not a production deployment pattern — Windows installs are for evaluation only.

Uninstall

Use the Start Menu Uninstall entry or Apps → Installed apps. Your data (%APPDATA%\PulpEngine — templates, assets, .env, logs) is left in place so a reinstall or upgrade picks it up; delete that folder manually for a full clean-up.

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