Push FluentCleaner releases to winget-pkgs

[jo-chemla]

It would be great to use the github action workflow vedantmgoyal9/winget-releaser to push new releases to winget-pkgs, the windows package manager repository.

A pre-requisite would be publishing the initial release of FluentCleaner to winget-pkgs, but I did not succeed because of the portable exe within a nested folder in the zip release - I've released dozens of packages to winget-pkgs, and this is the first one really tricky.

See ongoing PR microsoft/winget-pkgs#380779

[Belim]

@jo-chemla could it be that winget expects a simple standalone exe for portable, but FluentCleaner is a self-contained WinUI 3 app with hundreds of DLLs and WindowsAppRuntime dependencies? thats not really what winget considers portable

im not super familiar with the winget validation pipeline myself, so just guessing here , but that zip+WinUI 3 combo seems like a tricky edge case. what exactly does the validation fail on

[Belim]

if the portable zip route is a dead end here, the alternatives would probably be MSIX or a proper installer like Inno Setup/wix right? or am I wrong, you guys would know better than me. what's the recommended path for WinUI 3 apps on winget?

[jo-chemla]

Not sure what's preventing this.

Indeed winget supports and Komac can detect (see features) multiple installer types: Inno Setup, NSIS, MSI, WIX/Burn

There are multiple WinUI3 apps already live on winget-pkgs if you want to have a look. Had a quick look, they're a variety of installer types (note I know none of tehse apps): exe installer in Orayo, msix in EasyTidy, inno in RemioHost, wix in FluentTaskScheduler, and finally - the last one I checked 😅 - zip portable exe in XTimelineViewer

Here is their manifest, I tried to adapt it for FluentCleaner, only difference being that the exe is within a sub directory, but still no luck.

# Created using wingetcreate 1.12.8.0
# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://aka.ms/winget-manifest.installer.1.12.0.schema.json

PackageIdentifier: daruyanagi.XTimelineViewer
PackageVersion: 1.2.5
Platform:
- Windows.Desktop
MinimumOSVersion: 10.0.17763.0
InstallerType: zip
NestedInstallerType: portable
NestedInstallerFiles:
- RelativeFilePath: XTimelineViewer.exe
  PortableCommandAlias: xtimelineviewer
Installers:
- Architecture: x64
  InstallerUrl: https://github.com/daruyanagi/XTimelineViewer/releases/download/v1.2.5/XTimelineViewer-v1.2.5-win-x64.zip
  InstallerSha256: D90827FEB3A5C5BC48EC80129A62BB48C51990F142346498CFEB21E485E68E73
- Architecture: arm64
  InstallerUrl: https://github.com/daruyanagi/XTimelineViewer/releases/download/v1.2.5/XTimelineViewer-v1.2.5-win-arm64.zip
  InstallerSha256: 84FFF524A88E011B4899A30CA3CB3E1EFFB441D8A040A6D18C9CA1C914FC8902
ManifestType: installer
ManifestVersion: 1.12.0

[jo-chemla]

Edit just finally made it work, not sure if the bug is on winget or fluent-cleaner, just reported back in the OP winget-pkgs PR here microsoft/winget-pkgs#380779 (comment)

Finally found the culprit, MOTW, via claude sonnet parsing winget logs post install to make it work, which ended after

Started applying motw using IAttachmentExecute to C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\WinGet\builtbybel.FluentCleaner.26.05.27\139a43d7fe4a087bda587a554339c3d42b5ea5a34766a7414484f769d26ce0d2

The fix was to unblock the zip installer with the below command. Note deleting the thing would not make installing the manifest succeed.

 Unblock-File "C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\WinGet\builtbybel.FluentCleaner.26.05.27\139a43d7fe4a087bda587a554339c3d42b5ea5a34766a7414484f769D26ce0d2"

Claude explanation:
There it is. The log cuts off at MOTW (Mark of the Web) — winget is applying security zone marking to the downloaded zip and then silently aborting. This happens because the zip was downloaded from GitHub (internet zone) and Windows is blocking the installation.
Unblock or remove the file then reinstall the manifest. If MOTW keeps blocking it, the underlying issue is that winget isn't stripping the zone identifier after download — which is a known bug in some winget builds with portable zip installers. In that case, disabling MOTW for the WinGet temp folder via Group Policy or simply unblocking after each download is the workaround.

[Belim]

@jo-chemla nice catch with the MOTW 😃
so were just waiting on the PR merge now? fingers crossed the maintainers pick it up soon. thanks for pushing this through, the community wont forget it, and neither will I 😃 💯 🥇

[Belim]

@jo-chemla Automatic Validation ended with:

    2026-05-29T08:43:25.9097475Z ##[error] Result: Failed
    2026-05-29T08:43:25.9100425Z ##[error] Invalid file 'manifests/b/builtbybel/FluentCleaner/26.05.27/builtbybel.FluentCleaner.installer.yaml' type 'Added'. Verify git path must match with the casing of the file in disk or identical file is not merged.
    2026-05-29T08:43:27.1149827Z ##[error] Result: Failed

(Automated response - build 1377.)