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Top 23 C Win32 Projects
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There is already a "Windows Lite", and it's called ReactOS [0].
Except, the last thing we need is for Microsoft to own / embrace-extend-exterminate this. It's best that it's kept as an independent project, enabling developers to target the Windows API if they feel like it, while ensuring that they only target the Wine-compatible parts of it, which then enables their software to also run seamlessly on other platforms at no extra effort, and without requiring either the users or the devs to have to lock themselves into this ungodly telemetry-spying-ads-AI-.NET mess that the article talks about.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has zero to gain from making a Windows Lite variant themselves given their lifeline is exactly this telemetry-spying-ads-AI-.NET ecosystem; and they have zero to gain from absorbing ReactOS or similar projects, other than in order to eliminate them.
[0] https://reactos.org/
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Project mention: We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-03-26
Fixing bugs is the goldilocks zone for ai. Especially if you have a test that the agent can use to test their fix.
AI is not a junior developer, as some analogise, but Rain Man. Ultra autistic entity that can chew through way more logical conditions that you.
As long as you can describe the bug well ai will likely fix it. Logs help.
Let me give you specific example.
Here's a fix made by claude to my SumatraPDF: https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/commit/a571c0...
I have a crash reporting system that sends me crash information in text file: callstack of crashed thread, basic os info and logs of this execution.
The way I (well, claude) fixed this bug is: I said "analyze crash report: " and it does it in under a minute.
Recently I've fixed at least 30 bugs with this process (you can view recent checkins).
Those are crashes that I found hard to fix because even though by human standard I'm both expert developer and expert Windows API developer.
But I'm not an autistic machine that can just connect the dots between how every windows api works and how it ties to the callstack and information from the log, in under a minute.
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openssh-portable
Portable OpenSSH, all Win32-OpenSSH releases and wiki are managed at https://github.com/powershell/Win32-OpenSSH (by PowerShell)
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space-shooter.c
A cross-platform, top-down 2D space shooter written in C using only platform libraries.
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yori
Yori is a CMD replacement shell that supports backquotes, job control, and improves tab completion, file matching, aliases, command history, and more.
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programming-windows-5th-edition
Unofficial source code repo for Charles Petzold's Programming Windows 5th Edition.
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Display-Lock
Locks cursor to specified window and/or converts windows to borderless fullscreen, and prevents the cursor from spilling into another monitor
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wim-backup
Win32-based UI application for backup and restore of Windows-based system images (Windows partition) using Windows Imaging Format (WIM) in WinPE environment.
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nvdialog
NvDialog is a C library that lets you create modal dialog boxes, file dialogs, notifications and other kinds of popups using the system's native API for user interfaces.
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mdt-cleanup-harddrive-winpe
Win32-based UI application to erase the primary hard disk as part of a Lite Touch installation (WinPE / Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)).
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
C Win32 discussion
C Win32 related posts
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Microsoft's "Fix" for Windows 11: Flowers After the Beating
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Eight More Months of Agents
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30 Years of ReactOS
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Yori: CMD Reimagined
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Uxn32: Uxn Emulator for Windows and Wine
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I Hate Acrobat
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Case study of over-engineered C++ code
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 11 Jul 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Win32 projects in C? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | raylib | 33,758 |
| 2 | reactos | 17,730 |
| 3 | sumatrapdf | 17,051 |
| 4 | openssh-portable | 2,029 |
| 5 | space-shooter.c | 1,373 |
| 6 | yori | 1,311 |
| 7 | nappgui_src | 700 |
| 8 | rawdraw | 477 |
| 9 | WindowsHModular | 416 |
| 10 | asm_tutorial | 284 |
| 11 | uxn32 | 271 |
| 12 | webauthn | 189 |
| 13 | RudeWindowFixer | 166 |
| 14 | XScreenSaverWin | 116 |
| 15 | programming-windows-5th-edition | 110 |
| 16 | Display-Lock | 99 |
| 17 | nappgui | 96 |
| 18 | simple-opengl-loader | 90 |
| 19 | miniglut | 76 |
| 20 | wim-backup | 65 |
| 21 | nvdialog | 58 |
| 22 | vliv | 57 |
| 23 | mdt-cleanup-harddrive-winpe | 37 |
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