⚡ AppStarter

AppStarter is a lightweight, modern, Free and Open Source Windows process manager and service runner. It allows you to manage, monitor, and automate scripts and console applications with ease.

✨ Features

• Process Management: Start, stop, and restart multiple processes from a single dashboard.
• Auto-Restart: Automatically restart processes if they crash or exit unexpectedly.
• Scheduled Execution: Run commands on application start or via custom cron expressions.
• Logging: Real-time console output monitoring and persistent log storage in a SQLite database.
• Windows Service Mode: Run AppStarter as a Windows Service to keep your processes running even when logged out.
• Modern UI: A clean, dark-themed WPF interface with a responsive design.
• Portable Backups: Export and Import your entire configuration (commands and database) into a single compressed .asbak file.
• Single Executable: Ships as a single, self-contained .exe file—no installer or .NET runtime installation required.
• Free & Open Source: Licensed under MIT. Community-driven and free to use for personal and commercial projects.
• Custom Branding: Supports a custom icon.ico for the taskbar and file explorer (simply place a file named icon.ico in the root folder before building).

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 (x64)
• Administrator privileges (for Windows Service management)

Running the App

Since AppStarter is compiled as a self-contained executable, you can simply run AppStarter.exe. It will automatically create the necessary configuration folders in your %ProgramData%\AppStarter directory.

🛠️ Configuration & Backups

You can find the "File" menu in the top bar to:

• Import Configuration: Restore a previous environment from an .asbak file.
• Export Configuration: Create a compressed backup of your commands, logs, and settings.

🏗️ Building from Source

Build Prerequisites

To use the full build pipeline (including installers), you should have the following installed:

• .NET 10.0 SDK (Required)
• Inno Setup 6.4+ (Optional - For .exe installers)
• WiX Toolset v6.x (Optional - For .msi installers)

To build AppStarter and generate the single-file executables and installers, simply run the included automation script:

build.bat

This script will:

1. Auto-increment the build version in the project file.
2. Generate single-file executables (AppStarter.exe) for:
   • win-x64: Located in ./dist/x64
   • win-x86: Located in ./dist/x86
3. Self-contain all dependencies so the app runs without a .NET installation.
4. Author Installers:
   • EXE (Inno Setup): Creates professional installers if Inno Setup is installed.
   • MSI (WiX Toolset): Creates standard Windows MSI packages if WiX is installed.

All outputs (Single-EXE, Setup-EXE, and MSI) are neatly organized in the ./dist/vX.X.X/ directory.

📂 Project Structure

• MainWindow.xaml: Main dashboard UI.
• Services/: Core logic for Process Management, Database, and Backups.
• Models/: Data structures for commands and logs.
• ViewModels/: MVVM pattern implementation for UI-logic separation.
• build.bat: Windows Build & Version automation script.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.