# Claude Cowork on Windows: what installs, and what open source keeps

> Cowork runs in Claude's desktop app on Windows 10 or later, and the open-source question starts where the install stops: the sessions, files and approvals stay inside a Claude account. Kortix, the open-source CompanyOS, keeps that same setup in a git repo your team owns; that is my pick, and I work on Kortix's marketing, so weigh that accordingly.

URL: https://claudecoworkalternative.com/claude-cowork-for-windows

## Does a Windows team need the Claude desktop app, or a system it owns?

Duration decides it. A single person on a paid Claude plan, with the files already on a laptop, should take the app: sign in, connect the folders, and Cowork starts reading them. A team whose work must outlast a subscription, survive a handover to someone hired next year, or run on a company server is asking a different question. Windows never blocked that. The instructions, the connected folders and the approvals do, and installing an app moves none of them.

## What Anthropic documents for Windows today

The published requirement is short. Claude Desktop runs on macOS and Windows, Linux arrives in beta, and the system requirements name Windows 10 or higher. In the same article's availability table, Cowork is listed for Pro, Max, Ultra, Team and Enterprise ([Install Claude Desktop](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/10065433-install-claude-desktop), checked October 2026).

Execution is a second question. Anthropic's article on the surfaces puts Cowork on desktop, web, mobile and the Claude in Chrome side panel, and states where the record lives: "Your sessions and files live with your Claude account and go where you go, on any device" ([Use Claude Cowork on web, desktop, and mobile](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15520349-use-claude-cowork-on-web-desktop-and-mobile), checked October 2026).

Windows 10 satisfies the list, and a paid plan covers the rest. What the installer cannot do comes next. The instruction an agent follows, the accounts behind its connectors, and the files it writes all belong to a Claude account, and no download relocates them.

## What the install does not change

Since October 6, 2026, a new Cowork task on Pro, Max or Ultra runs on Anthropic's servers, and the same change removed the "Only on your computer" toggle. Work already running on a laptop stays there until it finishes. Anything started since goes to the cloud unless someone works in Claude Code instead ([the surfaces article](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15520349-use-claude-cowork-on-web-desktop-and-mobile), checked October 2026). A cloud session is kept against the account. Folders never leave the laptop, and a cloud task reaches them only while the desktop app is open.

Three things follow for a company. The account that holds the instruction holds the connectors and skills the agent may call, and the files it produces. An Enterprise admin grants or revokes Cowork, which settles who has access while the configuration stays in the account. No file in the account can be opened, diffed or rolled back; the instruction an agent followed last quarter sits behind a login.

## What installs on Windows, and where a session runs

Five checks a Windows admin can run before a demo, answered from each vendor's own documentation.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Claude Cowork | Microsoft Copilot Cowork |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Yes | No | No |
| Installs on | A browser, or a server of yours | Claude Desktop app, Windows 10 or later | A browser, Outlook or Teams, on a Copilot plan |
| Where a session runs | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or your on-prem network | Anthropic's cloud, with the app bridging local files | Microsoft's sandboxed cloud, inside Microsoft 365 |
| Where the configuration lives | Agent files and a manifest in the repo | Your Claude account | Your Microsoft 365 tenant |
| How a change is approved | A person reads a diff and merges | Auto mode on Pro, Max and Team; manual on Enterprise | Cowork pauses before sensitive actions |

Each cell comes from the vendor's own page: Kortix docs, Anthropic's Cowork article, Microsoft's Copilot Cowork overview and its get-started guide (checked October 2026).

## Two of the three carry the same name

Reach is not ownership. Claude Cowork and Copilot Cowork both open on a Windows machine in 2026, and a company holds neither of them. A Kortix project on the same laptop is a repo the company holds. Two of the three names share a word and little else.

Microsoft's Copilot Cowork works inside Microsoft 365 and stops for approval before anything sensitive. Microsoft gives Anthropic credit for part of it: "the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot" ([Copilot Cowork: a new way of getting work done](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/blog/2026/03/09/copilot-cowork-a-new-way-of-getting-work-done/), checked October 2026). Its configuration sits in a Microsoft 365 tenant, and enabling it takes a Copilot plan with usage-based billing switched on ([Get started with Copilot Cowork](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/copilot/cowork/get-started), checked October 2026).

Availability no longer separates these products. Where the configuration lives does, and [Cowork, two products](/cowork) compares both Cowork products on exactly that.

## What a Windows team owns with Kortix

Kortix is the open-source CompanyOS, and it stores the setup where a Windows admin already looks: a git repo. The project is that repo, kortix.yaml sits at the root, and the agent files live beside it in markdown. A security reviewer can read the manifest, which names the machine image, the connectors and triggers, and the secret names and grants, while secret values stay out of the repo ([Kortix docs](https://kortix.com/docs), checked October 2026).

The file that decides how an agent behaves opens in any editor on the machine. An edit comes back as a diff a person reads, and the review is a change request: session work reaches main through one, and whoever holds the merge permission merges it. Merge is default-deny for agents.

Open source. Read it, fork it, audit it. The source sits on [Kortix on GitHub](https://github.com/kortix-ai/CompanyOS).

Projects, sessions and change requests all work in a browser, so reading the setup takes no terminal. The install does: four steps from a terminal, and on Windows the script runs inside WSL ([the install guide](/install), checked October 2026).

## Running it beside Cowork

A team can move one job at a time. Write that job as an agent file, run it in Kortix while Cowork keeps the rest, and compare the two outputs on material the team already has. [The migration page](/migration) maps what becomes a file and what stays behind, and [the self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) covers a company server. For the closed pair, [Claude Cowork vs Microsoft Copilot](/claude-cowork-vs-microsoft-copilot) covers that matchup, and [what Claude Cowork became](/what-is-claude-cowork) explains the September 16, 2026 merge.

The app installs on Windows 10 or later. What remains unsettled is where the instructions, connectors and sessions live, and on Claude Cowork all three live in a Claude account.

## The repo, its files, the isolated computer and the triggers

`docs.md`

```
A project is one git repository.
Its agents, skills, memory and connector settings are files in it.
Every session runs on its own isolated cloud computer with the project's files, a terminal, a browser, Python, Node.js and document tools.
A session is one piece of agent work.
A schedule, a webhook or an event in another app starts a session with nobody at the keyboard.
```

Source: https://kortix.com/docs

Five lines from the Kortix docs, checked October 2026: what a project is, the files it holds, the isolated cloud computer a session runs on with its files and tools, what a session is, and the triggers that start a session with nobody at the keyboard.

## Windows, Microsoft and the open-source answer

Answers from Anthropic's and Microsoft's own pages, checked October 2026.

### Will Claude Cowork work on Windows?

Yes. Cowork is part of every paid plan and arrives through the Claude Desktop app, which works on Windows 10 or later and meets Anthropic's published requirement. The app, the sign-in and the plan are the same on a Windows machine.

### Is Claude Cowork available on Microsoft?

Yes, on Windows 10 or later, through the Claude Desktop app. Copilot Cowork is a separate product: Microsoft built it on the technology behind Claude Cowork, and it operates across Microsoft 365 on usage-based billing.

### Is claude.ai available for Windows?

Yes. Any current Windows browser opens claude.ai, and the Claude Desktop app installs on Windows 10 or later. Reaching local files, a browser or the computer itself takes that app.

### What is the Microsoft equivalent of Claude Cowork?

Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork. It handles Outlook, Teams, Excel and SharePoint work, pauses before sensitive actions, and is generally available to work or school accounts, with personal accounts in preview.

## Move the configuration to a repo your team holds

Start with one agent file and one job, then weigh the change request it opens against the install you were about to approve.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Read the docs](https://kortix.com/docs)

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A guide written by someone who works on Kortix's marketing. My pick is Kortix: open source, one repo, free to self-host.

Revised 2026-11-06

Not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI or Microsoft. Claude Cowork, ChatGPT Work and Copilot belong to their owners.

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