Download RigDesk

Early access. 0.91 is new: LiveAngle, RigScreen+ and RedFrame on Windows games. It works, but it has not been through as many phones as 0.90 yet — tell us what breaks at /bug.

RigDesk turns an Android phone into a desktop — real windows, a taskbar, an app drawer — and runs real Windows and Linux programs on the phone itself. The app is free and needs no root.

What you need

• Android 11 or newer, on an arm64 phone (arm64-v8a).
• 14.8 MB for the app. The Windows layer (about 60 MB) downloads by itself the first time you open a Windows program — from our public GitHub, built in the open from Wine’s source. .NET support is a further download, only if you ask for it.
• No root. Not needed, not wanted.
• A monitor is optional. USB-C to HDMI or DisplayPort gives the best picture; RigDesk also casts to a TV over 5 GHz Wi-Fi, or runs on the phone’s own screen.

Install it in four steps

1. Tap Download above, on the phone.
2. Open the file when the download finishes. Android asks whether your browser may install apps — Android calls it Install unknown apps. Allow it.
3. Tap Install. Android warns about every app that does not come from Google Play: the warning is about where the file came from, not about anything found in it. If you want to be sure it is ours, check the fingerprint first.
4. Open RigDesk. It asks how you want to use it — monitor, TV or the phone’s own screen — and the guide takes it from there.

Updates come inside the app

From version 0.78 on, RigDesk updates itself: a panel says what is new, downloads the update with a progress bar, picks up where it stopped if the connection drops, and installs it. Every release is signed with the same certificate, so it installs over the one you have — your profile, your programs and your settings stay where they are.

Check that the file is ours

Nobody vouches for a file you install yourself, so here are the two numbers that let you check it. The first belongs to this exact build. The second is our signing identity: it never changes, and every update carries it.

sha256sum RigDesk-v0.91.apk
apksigner verify --print-certs RigDesk-v0.91.apk

What is new in 0.91

• LiveAngle — turn any photo into a 3D wallpaper that moves when you tilt the phone; on cars, the light slides over the paint and the glass
• RigScreen+ — play your PC's games on the phone over home Wi-Fi, and show the phone's screen on the PC (free program for Windows)
• RigGames with SHOCKPOINT — a game made for RigDesk, right in the app drawer
• RedFrame adds frames on top of Windows games too — 2X and 3X, with less lag and no torn lines
• Files works like Windows Explorer — back, forward, a path you can click, sortable columns and a search that answers while you type
• Touch controls for Windows games — arrow keys and WASD on the game bar, three fingers for the game bar itself
• Faster Windows programs — the translator now loads its per-program profiles
• Deleted desktop icons stay deleted after a restart

Every earlier release, and every hotfix in between, is on the hotfixes page.

Why not Google Play

RigDesk downloads and runs a Windows compatibility layer after it is installed. That is the whole point of the app, and it is exactly what Play’s Device and Network Abuse policy is there to stop. Rather than ship a crippled build or hide what the app does, RigDesk is distributed from here, signed with our own key, and it updates in place.