Installing OpenClaw on Windows

Windows is the platform with the most OpenClaw installation threads and, since Windows Hub shipped, the most ways to do it. Upstream now documents three: the Windows Hub companion app, the native PowerShell installer and a WSL2 Gateway. Here is what each one is, the failure modes people actually report, and the honest fourth option of not installing it at all.

Option one: Windows Hub

Windows Hub is a native companion app for Windows 10 20H2 and later and for Windows 11. It installs without administrator rights, ships signed x64 and ARM64 installers, and on first launch offers to set up a local, app-owned WSL Gateway for you without touching any Ubuntu distro you already have. It also gives you a tray status, a chat window, a Command Center for diagnostics, and Windows node mode for screen, camera, notifications and controlled command execution.

• Recommended by upstream: it is the option with the fewest moving parts you have to understand.
• Node mode needs Gateway pairing and explicit approval of what the node may do; privacy-sensitive commands stay opt-in.
• It can also expose the same Windows capabilities as a local MCP server to clients such as Claude Desktop or Cursor.

Option two: native PowerShell

One PowerShell line installs the CLI and the Gateway natively. Managed startup uses a Windows Scheduled Task that launches the Gateway through a hidden wrapper so no console window appears, and falls back to a Startup-folder item if task creation is denied. After an update of an older install, the launcher may need regenerating with the gateway install command.

Option three: WSL2

WSL2 remains the most Linux-compatible Gateway runtime on Windows: install a distro, enable systemd, then run the Linux installer inside it. Headless auto-start before login needs a scheduled task that keeps the distro alive, because recent WSL versions idle-terminate it seconds after the last client exits, and that task has to run as your own account, since per-user distros are invisible to the SYSTEM user.

What people actually hit

The forum version is shorter than the docs. Onboarding that crashes on a missing module, then another, then another. A Node version the installer wants that fights the one you already have. A reinstall loop. The docs point at WSL2 for exactly these cases, and the painful alternative is installing missing dependencies one at a time until it stops crashing.

You fix one manually, next one surfaces.

Or skip it

If what you want is the assistant in WhatsApp or Telegram rather than a Gateway on your PC, none of the three options above is required. Hosted OpenClaw on Diali runs the same OpenClaw on an isolated instance in the EU, and your Windows machine only enters the picture if you want the agent to use it, which is what Remote Hands is for.

• Hub if you want a desktop app and node mode.
• Native if you live in PowerShell and want the CLI.
• WSL2 if you want the Linux runtime and know your way around systemd.
• Hosted if you want the agent and not the install.

The longer version of that last line is OpenClaw alternatives.