Installing Noviscan on Windows

Who this is for: the person installing Noviscan on a PC, starting from nothing. Assumes: nothing. You have a Windows PC and the right to install software on it. Applies from version: 0.1.3

By the end of this page, Noviscan is running on your PC, you have an account, and you know where your data lives.

What you need

Windows 10 or newer, 64-bit. The installer refuses to start below that: this is not a recommendation.
Administrator rights on this PC. The installer asks for them, and Windows will show its confirmation prompt.
About 300 MB to download, plus room for the installation.

You need nothing else. In particular, do not try to install WebView2 beforehand: the installer carries it and only puts it in place if it is missing.

Getting the installer

⚠️ NOT ANNOUNCED YET — this section does not give you a link. The public page secufor.net/noviscan/ shows "Windows — Coming soon" (observed 2026-08-30). What is not open is the announcement, not the channel: we are waiting for a version to be tested end to end before sending anyone to install it. This page describes the complete installation so that nothing is missing on that day.

The file is named NoviscanSetup-<version>.exe, with a .sha256 checksum published next to it.

Checking that the file is the right one

The day you have the file — this section does not assume you already do — run two checks, independent of each other. Do both: they do not tell you the same thing.

1. The signature. Right-click the downloaded file → Properties → Digital Signatures tab. The signer must be Secufor SAS. Windows also checks this itself when you launch the file: if no signature appears, do not run it.

2. The checksum. It tells you the file did not get truncated or altered on the way.

On the download page, next to the installer, a second link carries the same name followed by .sha256. Save it in the same Downloads folder and without renaming either file: the command below finds the checksum file from the installer's name. It reads both and answers yes or no — you have nothing to compare.

PowerShell, if you have never opened it: it is the Windows terminal. Windows key, type powershell, then Enter. A black window opens; you paste the whole block into it (right-click pastes), then Enter. What it answers appears just below.

Where: your Windows PC · PowerShell · no special rights

$exe = (Get-ChildItem "$HOME\Downloads\NoviscanSetup-*.exe" | Sort-Object LastWriteTime | Select-Object -Last 1).FullName
$expected = (Get-Content "$exe.sha256" -Raw).Trim().Split(' ')[0]
if ((Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 $exe).Hash -ieq $expected) {
  "Checksum matches."
} else {
  "CHECKSUM DIFFERS - do not run this file."
}

If you would rather compare it yourself: Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 <file> shows the checksum, and the .sha256 file holds that same checksum followed by a space, an asterisk and the file name — compare only the first 64 characters. Case does not matter.

The signature says who produced the file; the checksum says it reached you whole. A file can pass one and fail the other.

Installing

Double-click the installer and follow it. Three moments deserve your attention.

The licence agreement. You must accept it to continue. The text is in French, whatever the language of your Windows.

The installation folder. C:\Program Files\Noviscan by default. This folder holds the software only — never your data, which lives elsewhere (next section).

Four checkboxes, all unticked by default. Nothing is ticked on your behalf:

Option	What it does	When to tick it
Create a desktop icon	adds an icon	as you prefer
Start Noviscan when you sign in	Noviscan starts with Windows	if this PC is your surveillance server
Prevent sleep and disk spin-down on AC power	the PC no longer sleeps, on mains power only — this is a Windows setting, and you can revert it from Settings	if you want continuous surveillance
Allow Noviscan to access the Internet	updates, online licensing and downloading the recognition models; you can change this later in settings	tick it, unless you provide the models yourself (see the box below)

The second and third go together. A PC that falls asleep watches nothing: if you intend to leave Noviscan running permanently, tick both — otherwise neither.

⚠️ The fourth one decides whether Noviscan recognises anyone. The recognition models do not ship with the software: it downloads them on first start. Leave the box unticked and do nothing else, and no face will ever be detected — Noviscan opens, runs, and never finds anyone. The checkbox label says so, and Noviscan will tell you again in two places: at the Internet access step of the wizard, for as long as the box is unticked there, and then through the "Recognition unavailable" banner at the top of the application. You may as well know it here, ahead of all three.

So there are two ways to make recognition work: tick the box, or install the two model files by hand (they are public — see "Installing the recognition models by hand" below). Doing nothing is not one of them.

It also turns off updates, security ones included: left unticked, it is on you to come and fetch new versions.

The installer puts WebView2 in place if it is missing, without asking. If that step fails, it points you to Microsoft's page — the installation cannot finish without it.

Installing the recognition models by hand

Only needed if you left the "Allow Noviscan to access the Internet" box unticked. Otherwise Noviscan handles it on first start and there is nothing to read here.

Two files, public, published by the OpenCV project:

face_detection_yunet_2023mar.onnx — https://github.com/opencv/opencv_zoo/raw/main/models/face_detection_yunet/face_detection_yunet_2023mar.onnx
face_recognition_sface_2021dec.onnx — https://github.com/opencv/opencv_zoo/raw/main/models/face_recognition_sface/face_recognition_sface_2021dec.onnx

Download them from another PC if this one has no Internet, then drop them in the data\models subfolder of your data folder — the one you chose on first launch, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Noviscan by default. Create the models folder if it does not exist. Do not rename the files.

Restart Noviscan: the "Recognition unavailable" banner disappears, and that is how you know the files are in the right place.

At the end, the installer offers to launch Noviscan. If you decline, the Noviscan shortcut is waiting in the Start menu; on the desktop there is one only if you ticked the matching box, which is unticked by default.

Where your data lives

It is not created by the installer. On the very first launch, and before the wizard opens, a Windows dialog offers you the location %LOCALAPPDATA%\Noviscan: answer Yes to keep it, No to pick another one.

%LOCALAPPDATA%, what it is. A shortcut that Windows replaces with your account's data folder, in practice C:\Users\<your name>\AppData\Local. Pasted as-is into the Explorer address bar, it takes you there — that folder is hidden by default, which is the whole point of the shortcut.

The wizard then shows it read-only — it is the same location, not a second choice.

This choice is offered once only. Later starts read back the location that was kept.

That is where your alerts, your encrypted captures, the enrolled people and the encryption key will live. If you back up anything, back up that folder.

The first launch

On first launch, Noviscan opens a setup wizard. It cannot be skipped.

Terms of use — read and tick. You can download or copy the text. The checkbox reads "I have read and accept the end-user license agreement."; the Continue button stays inactive until it is ticked, and that is the only sign: no message confirms the acceptance. You see the step cleared when the next screen, Locations, appears.
Locations — the data location is shown read-only (you have just chosen it); the installation directory and the cache directory can be typed into. Caches are re-creatable temporary files: putting them on a fast disk is a good choice, losing them has no consequence.

⚠️ The installation directory, at this step, moves NOTHING. The software is already installed — the installer wrote it before the wizard opened. This field records the value, it copies no file and creates no shortcut: typing another path there does not move the installation, it only makes your configuration wrong. Leave it as it is. To install elsewhere, it is the installer that has to be told, before this point.

How to use this device — three paths, mutually exclusive:

Path	What it does
Create a new account	this PC becomes your server
Pair this device	this PC becomes a client of a server already installed
I have a license file	attaches this PC to your server using your licence

⚠️ This choice cannot be taken back. By creating an account, this device becomes a server and can no longer be paired to another one. If you are installing your first PC, choose Create a new account.

What pairing will ask you for: the instance address (https://192.168.1.10:8000, for example), the pairing secret — shown on the server already installed, under Settings → Devices — and, if you want one, a name for this device. The licence file is the one you received when you bought it.

The owner account — email address and password required, display name optional. The password must be at least 8 characters; that is the only rule enforced, and length remains your best protection. This first account receives the owner role.
Internet access — one checkbox, unticked by default, which controls every outbound connection Noviscan makes on its own: update checks, online licensing and downloading the recognition models. It does not block the cameras or online services you connect yourself. You can change this later in Settings.

⚠️ Left unticked, face recognition will not work — the models are not shipped with Noviscan, they are downloaded at first startup. The rest of the product works normally. The screen tells you so, for as long as the box is unticked. To do without an Internet connection: Installing the recognition models by hand, earlier on this page.

The button reads "Continue" either way, but it does not do the same thing. Ticked, it takes you to the next step; unticked, it finishes the wizard — you will not see step 6, and Noviscan opens.
Product improvement — one checkbox, unticked by default, to allow sending anonymous data. No images, no names, no addresses. You can finish without ticking it, and change your mind later in Settings.

This screen only appears if you allowed Internet access at step 5. Sending that data is itself an outbound connection: refusing them all refuses this one too, and Noviscan does not ask you a question whose answer it already knows.

Then Finish. Noviscan opens.

The two other paths — pairing and licence file — end differently: they ask you to restart Noviscan, which then opens as a client. What tells you it worked: on restart you see the remote server's sign-in screen, not the wizard. No confirmation message is displayed.

To see which route the link takes, open the mobile app settings, Paired instance section (not the server Settings). The Link line there carries the only value attesting the link is the expected one: "TLS verified (instance CA)" — or "Pinned TLS". Two other values exist and mean the opposite: "Unpinned TLS" and "Local HTTP (unencrypted)", both shown in red.

Noviscan works without a licence

A freshly created server starts on the Free plan. Nothing is blocked, and nothing is asked of you on first launch.

To install a licence later: Settings (left-hand bar) → License tab, Install a license section, which accepts a .lic file. That tab only appears to administrator accounts — and the owner account you have just created is one of them: the four roles go from broadest to narrowest (owner, administrator, operator, viewer), and an owner sees everything an administrator sees. It replaces the active licence immediately, without restarting the application.

What the installation does not open

Noviscan listens only on this PC. By default it binds to 127.0.0.1 on port 8000: no other machine on your network can reach it, and the installer adds no firewall rule.

This is deliberate. Opening access from your network — for the mobile app, for instance — is a separate decision, taken in Settings, which then turns on transport encryption.

Uninstalling

Through Settings → Apps, like any Windows software.

Uninstalling erases nothing without asking you. The uninstaller asks explicitly whether you want your data erased, and No is preselected. Erasing is irreversible: the enrolled people, the alerts, the encrypted captures and the encryption key all go — and without that key, even a backup of your media stays unreadable.

⚠️ Not to be confused with retention periods. While Noviscan is running, it does delete things on its own, without asking: alert images after thirty days, the alerts themselves after ninety, videos after seven. What uninstalling will not do without your agreement is erase the rest, in one go. The retention periods are detailed in Reviewing and handling alerts.

If a licence file is present, the uninstaller drops a copy into your Documents before deleting anything.

If something goes wrong

The installer refuses to start. Your Windows is older than 10, or 32-bit.
Windows shows a security warning. Check the signature (Properties → Digital Signatures): it must read Secufor. If not, do not run the file.
Installation stops on WebView2. Install the runtime from the Microsoft page the installer points to, then run the installation again.
I picked the wrong path on first launch. It cannot be taken back from the wizard: you must start again from a fresh installation, data included.
I forgot where my data is. It is in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Noviscan if you changed nothing on first launch.

Applies to Noviscan 0.1.3. The labels quoted are those of the application in this version; if they differ on your machine, your version is not this one.