You are starting a new project (use Appium WinAppDriver fork) or you only have Windows 10 Home.
While Microsoft pushes cloud-first tools, WinAppDriver remains a beloved, offline workhorse for QA engineers stuck behind corporate firewalls or testing high-security desktop apps. 2. The Official Download Path (With a Cautionary Tale) For Windows 10, the download process is deceptively simple, but contains three hidden traps.
After downloading, you must enable Developer Mode in Windows 10: Settings → Update & Security → For Developers → Developer Mode . Why interesting? Without this, WinAppDriver installs but silently fails to locate any UI elements.