How to Find and Install the Codex Beta on Windows

People were acting like the Codex Windows beta was still some vague invite-only thing. It is not.

If you are looking for the Mac build instead, I already wrote that guide here:

How to Find and Install the Latest Codex Beta on macOS

The Windows app has a public Microsoft Store listing, and that listing is the best public reference for the current Windows beta. There is not much real discussion around it yet, which is exactly why the official pages matter more than reposted links, screenshots, or old alpha references.

If you want the short version first:

Public Windows availability announced by OpenAI: March 4, 2026
Public download page: Codex (Beta) on Microsoft Store
Current Store releaseDateUtc: 2026-03-28T01:28:32Z
Current Store lastUpdateDateUtc: 2026-04-24T02:00:22Z
Minimum OS listed: Windows 10 version 19041.0 or higher

If what you want is the current public Windows beta and not some stale alpha artifact, that Store page is the one that matters.

Use the Store, Not Old Alpha Links

The file you actually want lives behind the public Microsoft Store listing:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n8cj4w95tbz

That is the public page for the Windows beta.

Unlike the Mac beta, Windows does not seem to expose a public appcast feed with direct package URLs. So the Windows story is simpler: for the public beta, the Microsoft Store page is what you watch.

The other official references that matter are:

That OpenAI post was originally about the Mac app, but it was updated on March 4, 2026 to say the Codex app was now available on Windows. OpenAI’s Help Center release notes also have a March 4, 2026 entry for “Codex app on Windows.”

If you are trying to work out whether the Windows app is real, public, and current, those references are enough.

What Date Should You Use?

If someone asks, “When did Codex release on Windows?”, the clean answer is:

OpenAI publicly announced Windows availability on March 4, 2026.

That is the date public coverage and discussion started, and it is the safest date to use in a normal post.

The only wrinkle is that the current Microsoft Store page also embeds:

releaseDateUtc: 2026-03-28T01:28:32Z
lastUpdateDateUtc: 2026-04-24T02:00:22Z

So if you are documenting the Store metadata itself, include those exact fields and note the mismatch. If you are answering the normal reader question, use March 4, 2026.

Why the Listing Matters

The current Store metadata identifies the app as Codex (Beta) from OpenAI for Windows.Desktop on x64, with a minimum requirement of Windows 10 version 19041.0 or higher.

The more interesting signal is how OpenAI is describing the app. The Store listing is not framed as a stripped-down companion to the CLI. It is positioned around running multiple coding agents in parallel, keeping work isolated with worktrees and sandboxing, reviewing diffs before merging, reusing workflows with skills, and carrying over history and configuration from the Codex CLI and IDE extension.

It also explicitly calls out Windows-native developer environments, including PowerShell. That is the part that matters. This is the public Windows release path for the current desktop experience, not just a placeholder listing.

How to Install the Codex Beta on Windows

Open the Microsoft Store listing.
Sign in with your Microsoft account if needed.
Click Get or Install.
Let Windows finish the install.
Open Codex from Start and sign in with your ChatGPT account.

The Store page also says the app can be installed on up to ten Windows devices tied to that Microsoft account.

That is the whole process.

How to Check the Current Windows Build Yourself

Because there is no obvious public Windows appcast like the Mac one, the practical answer is simple: check the live Store page.

If you inspect the page source, the metadata currently exposes fields like releaseDateUtc, lastUpdateDateUtc, platform details, architecture, and minimum OS support. That is enough to confirm that the listing is current and to see when Microsoft last updated the package metadata.

If you are posting this for other people, share the Microsoft Store page first: