OpenAI's agentic coding app arrives on Windows with native sandboxing, PowerShell support, and a new WinUI skill — no Mac required.

OpenAI’s Codex agentic coding app is now available on Windows.

To say Codex has been a hit for OpenAI would be an understatement. The Codex App for Mac, which launched in early February, was downloaded more than 1 million times in the first week alone, and weekly active users now stand at 1.6 million.

There will likely be quite a bit of demand for the Windows version, too: OpenAI says more than 500,000 developers were on the waitlist.

As OpenAI stresses, the Windows version wasn’t just built to be compatible with Microsoft’s operating system but “for real Windows developer environments,” as an OpenAI spokesperson put it in an email to The New Stack.

The app was built to offer native sandboxing and workflows, so that developers on Windows can use the tools they are already familiar with. By default, the app uses its own native Windows sandbox, but there is an option to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux and its tools as well.

If you opt to go Windows-native, Codex for Windows uses OS-level controls such as restricted tokens and filesystem access control, ensuring that the agents can run in environments like PowerShell, Microsoft’s default shell for Windows.

For the most part, the Windows version looks and feels almost exactly like the Mac version. The same skills, automations, and support for worktrees are available on Windows. There are also some Windows-specific skills, including a WinUI skill for developers who write Windows apps.