A freshly reset Windows 11 PC used to mean losing every custom preference, plugin, and theme you’ve painstakingly configured. A new open-source utility called Endstate changes that—capable of restoring not just your applications, but the settings for 357 of them, it tackles one of the most tedious parts of a clean install.
A two‑stage rescue for your workstation
Endstate, first reported by Windows Central after an interview with its developer, blends two familiar package managers—WinGet and Chocolatey—with a settings‑restoration layer that operates on per‑app ZIP profiles. The tool is free, written in Go, and packaged with a Tauri‑and‑React desktop interface that works entirely offline and requires no account.
The app restoration side is straightforward: Endstate reads a saved package list and hands the heavy lifting to WinGet or Chocolatey, so virtually any application available through those repositories will be reinstalled. The standout feature is what happens after the binaries land. For 357 supported applications—a list that includes MSI Afterburner, Adobe Lightroom Classic, Visual Studio Code, Windows Terminal, PowerToys, Git, Obsidian, OBS Studio, Notepad++, and ShareX—Endstate can also restore configuration files, preferences, and customizations from a portable ZIP archive. Settings restoration is always optional and can be toggled on or off per application, a safeguard when moving between machines with different hardware or security boundaries.
An application does not need a dedicated settings module to be reinstalled. If it is available through a package manager, Endstate will still include it in the app‑restore pass; only the extra settings layer is skipped. This separation means you can start small—maybe recovering just your Visual Studio Code extensions and terminal profiles—and expand as you trust the tool or as its module library grows.
What it actually means for you
Home users and PC builders
If you are the type who performs a clean Windows 11 installation every six to twelve months, or who frequently spins up a fresh VM, Endstate attacks the weekend of reconfiguration head‑on. Instead of digging through AppData folders, exporting registry keys, and rewriting JSON configs by hand, you can generate a single profile, transfer it to the new machine, and let Endstate handle the restore.
Concrete examples: imagine capturing your OBS Studio scene collections, your custom PowerToys keyboard manager shortcuts, and your Notepad++ theme and language preferences—all in one operation. That is the promise, and early coverage suggests it works well for the most popular developer and creator tools.
The catch, at least for now, is that the tool is not code‑signed. Windows SmartScreen will flag the installer, so you must be comfortable downloading from the official GitHub repository and possibly clicking through a warning. The developer has stated that code‑signing is on the roadmap but not yet implemented.
IT administrators
Endstate is not a replacement for enterprise configuration management. Intune, Configuration Manager, Group Policy, and PowerShell DSC remain the right answer for compliance‑controlled environments, secrets handling, and repeatable build baselines. However, the tool can serve as a lightweight companion for lab machines, developer VMs, or non‑critical workstations where speed matters more than auditing. If you test it, sandbox the process first, inspect the ZIP contents before importing, and never restore a profile that might contain credentials, tokens, or licensed plug‑in data tied to a different device.
How we got here—a gap that lived for decades
Windows has never had a first‑party mechanism to migrate application settings the way iOS or Android treat app data as a seamless part of backup and restore. On an iPhone, you sign in, and your apps—along with their preferences—reappear. On Windows, even after Microsoft added winget’s export command in 2021, the restored applications arrive in factory‑default condition. All your carefully tuned toggles, themes, and shortcuts are gone.
Power users have cobbled together workarounds for years: manually copying %AppData% subfolders, exporting registry branches with reg save, or writing scripted setups that reapply configurations. None of these methods are universal, and each application hides its settings in a different corner—sometimes in Documents, sometimes in LocalAppData, occasionally in the registry. This fragmentation is exactly what Endstate’s per‑app settings modules address, by knowing where each supported program stores its configuration and bundling those files into a single portable profile.
What to do now
If you want to try Endstate, the steps are straightforward but merit a careful approach:
- Get it from the source – Download the latest release only from the official GitHub repository. Avoid third‑party download sites, as the tool is not digitally signed and could easily be repackaged.
- Create a profile – Run Endstate on a working machine, select the applications you want to save, and let it build a ZIP archive. Review the contents before copying it anywhere; you can open the ZIP and inspect folders to ensure no sensitive data slipped in.
- Restore selectively – On your fresh Windows 11 install, launch Endstate, point it at the profile, and choose which apps to restore with settings. Start with non‑critical applications first. If you use any tool that stores authentication tokens (email clients, cloud storage syncers, password‑manager apps), exclude the settings restore for those.
- Contribute or wait for growth – Endstate’s library of 357 applications will satisfy many, but your favorite utility might still be missing. The project is open source, so developers can contribute new modules. If you aren’t a developer, keep an eye on the releases page; the developer told Windows Central that expanding module coverage is a top priority.
What to watch next
Endstate’s immediate roadmap includes extended Linux and macOS support, which could make it a cross‑platform standard for development workstations. Code‑signing is also in progress, which will lower SmartScreen friction. The more exciting unknown is how quickly the settings‑module library grows—each new application module makes the tool more compelling, and the community around WinGet and Chocolatey is large enough to drive contributions. For now, a solid first version is here, turning what used to be a day‑long chore into a click‑and‑wait operation.