jellyfin-server-windows/README.md

Jellyfin for Windows

Part of the Jellyfin Project

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Jellyfin for Windows collects the tray application, service utilities, and NSIS installer that are used when setting up and running Jellyfin.

Getting Started

Are you looking to just run and setup Jellyfin on your Windows machine? Go to https://jellyfin.org/downloads and get the Windows stable release.

Do you want to build Jellyfin's tray app or installer for yourself? Read on!

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Compiling the Tray App

Requirements

• .NET 5.0 SDK

Steps

1. Build using the dotnet command, or using Visual Studio/VS Code.
   • On the command line, in the root of the cloned repository, execute this command: dotnet build -c Release
2. From the resulting bin folder, collect Jellyfin.Windows.Tray.exe and all the DLLs within.

Usage

The tray app is designed to do three things:

1. Start and Stop Jellyfin
2. Open the Web UI
3. Open the Log Folder

To control Jellyfin, it expects that either Jellyfin is installed as a service, or that a corresponding set of registry keys has been set by the installer.

The registry entries look like the following in a typical install:

Location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Jellyfin\Server

Name	Type	Data
DataFolder	REG_EXPAND_SZ	C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server
InstallFolder	REG_EXPAND_SZ	C:\Program Files\Jellyfin\Server
ServiceAccountType	REG_SZ	None

• DataFolder must be the location where the application support files will go (database, config, logs, etc).
• InstallFolder must be the location where jellyfin.exe can be found.
• ServiceAccountType is "None" unless Jellyfin is installed as a service, in which case it will either be "LocalSystem" or "NetworkService".

If you want to quickly import these default paths, you can use Jellyfin Registry.reg in the Support Files folder to do so.

When the tray app is started, it will check if Jellyfin is installed as a service with the name JellyfinServer, and if located it will start the service (unless it is already running). If the server is not installed as a service, it will look to the registry for the location of the config files and executable, and launch the executable with the data folder path as an argument. If the registry keys are not found, it will close with an error that an installation was not located.

To open the Web UI, the app will look for a network config in the DataFolder, and open the user's default browser to the path. To open the Log Folder, the app will launch Windows Explorer to the DataFolder path, appending \Log to the end.

Building the Installer

Requirements

• NSIS 3.x+
• A copy of the jellyfin-ux repository
• The latest Jellyfin Windows Combined package
• The GPLv2 License as a file simply named LICENSE

If you choose to build Jellyfin server on your own, you will also require:

• jellyfin-ffmpeg for Windows, or equivalent FFmpeg/FFprobe 4.3.2+

Steps

1. Ensure that a complete copy of Jellyfin Server is available in a folder. If using the combined package from above, proceed to the next step.

   • If you are building Jellyfin from source, place a copy of jellyfin-ffmpeg or equivalent in the same folder as the server binary. You need to add ffmpeg.exe and ffprobe.exe alongside jellyfin.exe.

2. Copy the GPLv2 License file either from their website, or the Support Files folder, and place it in the same directory as the server. Ensure that it is named LICENSE with no extension.

3. Download a copy of the jellyfin-ux repository, or at least have the following files at a path ending with \branding\NSIS\:

   • modern-install.ico
   • installer-header.bmp
   • installer-right.bmp

4. Install NSIS if not already available. Be sure to select a Full install.

5. Open Powershell. Set the environment variable InstallLocation to the folder where Jellyfin Server is available.

   • e.g. $env:InstallLocation = "C:\Users\Anthony\Downloads\jellyfin_10.7.7"

6. Go to the directory where NSIS is installed. In most systems, this is at C:\Program Files (x86).

   • e.g. cd 'C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS'.

7. Run the following command, substituting the path to your jellyfin-ux files and the NSIS script from this repository:

   .\makensis /Dx64 /DUXPATH=C:\Users\Anthony\Downloads\jellyfin-ux-master "C:\Users\Anthony\Downloads\jellyfin-server-windows\nsis\jellyfin.nsi"
   

8. Wait for the installer to build. When complete, it will be located next to the NSIS script file. It is now ready to be used.

Troubleshooting

If you have any questions or encounter any problems, please open an issue in this repository, or reach out to @anthonylavado on Matrix/Discord/IRC.