Windows

Single-file CLI, portable zip, or NSIS installer. The GUI controller listens on loopback only.

Windows has three shapes. They are not three different WAFs.

A. Single-file CLI

Download cheesewaf-*-windows-amd64.exe or the arm64 file.
Run:

POWERSHELL

.\cheesewaf-*-windows-amd64.exe serve --config .\cheesewaf.yaml --data-dir .\data
.\cheesewaf-*-windows-amd64.exe status
.\cheesewaf-*-windows-amd64.exe stop

The forwarding process does not need the installer. The Web UI assets live in web/dist next to the executable in zip / DMG / tar packages.

B. Portable zip

Unpack cheesewaf-*-windows-amd64.zip to a directory such as D:\CheeseWAF.
Run:

POWERSHELL

.\cheesewaf.exe serve --config .\configs\cheesewaf.yaml --data-dir .\data
.\cheesewaf.exe status
.\cheesewaf.exe stop

C. NSIS installer

Run CheeseWAF-*-windows-amd64-setup.exe or the arm64 setup.
Follow the wizard.
Uninstall keeps data\ by default.

The installer may register a Windows service (sc.exe create CheeseWAF …). Treat that as best-effort.

Local controller

cheesewaf-gui is not a second admin console. It only starts, stops, and opens the real management UI.

Bind address: 127.0.0.1:17943
Shows PID and running state
Opens the Web console and the config folder
Optional current-user autostart (HKCU\Run)

POWERSHELL

.\cheesewaf-gui.exe --config .\configs\cheesewaf.yaml --data-dir .\data

The browser opens http://127.0.0.1:17943/.