Fliks

Installation

Windows

Run Fliks as a native Windows system-tray app, with hardware transcoding and no separate dependencies to install.

What you get#

A lightweight system-tray app that runs the Fliks server natively on Windows, with hardware transcoding through Intel QSV, AMD AMF or NVIDIA NVENC, auto-detected at startup. It bundles its own Node.js, PostgreSQL and FFmpeg: there is nothing else to install. The tray app itself is a C#/.NET 8 WinForms application; the server underneath it is the same backend as every other install method.

Install#

Download the installer from the latest release (the Fliks-Server-<version>-x64.exe asset) and run it. It needs 64-bit Windows 10 or 11. It installs per-user, with no administrator prompt, into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Fliks.

Note

Releases are only Authenticode-signed when the project's signing certificate is configured in CI. An unsigned installer makes Windows SmartScreen warn that the app is unrecognized; choose More info > Run anyway to continue.

What happens on launch#

  1. PostgreSQL 18 initializes on first run and starts on port 5433.
  2. Node.js starts the backend on port 4848.
  3. On the very first launch only, your browser opens http://localhost:4848.
  4. Hardware transcoding is auto-detected, in this order: QSV > AMF > NVENC > CPU. NVENC needs an NVIDIA driver 570 or newer; on an older driver it's skipped and NVIDIA hardware falls back to CPU. AMD runs a full GPU pipeline (D3D11 decode, scale, AMF encode) on the bundled FFmpeg.

Tray menu#

Action What it does
Open Fliks Opens the web UI in your default browser.
Start at Login Toggles auto-start, stored in the per-user Run registry key.
Restart Server Stops and restarts PostgreSQL and Node.js.
View Logs… Opens the log folder in Explorer.
Quit Fliks Gracefully shuts down every process.

Data locations#

Path Contents
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Fliks\postgresql\ The database cluster.
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Fliks\conf\ The JWT secret and tray-settings.json, which holds the web port (Port, default 4848) and the database port (PgPort, default 5433).
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Fliks\data\ Backend working directory: images, thumbnails, backups.
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Fliks\logs\ Backend and PostgreSQL logs.
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Fliks\transcode\ The HLS transcode cache, ephemeral.

Uninstalling the app through Windows' own uninstaller leaves this data in place; the app itself is removed from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Fliks.

Note

On versions up to 4.1.x, in-app backups need pg_dump, which the app doesn't put on the server's PATH. They only work if a PostgreSQL client of the same major version (or newer) is installed and on the system PATH.

Clean reset#

To wipe everything and start over, close Fliks first, then in PowerShell:

powershell
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Fliks"

First run#

Continue with the Quick start: open http://localhost:4848, log in with the default account, and add your first library. Point it at any folder on disk; there's no container mount to think about on this install method.

See also#

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