Updates now reach everyone, and uninstalling can no longer strand your controller
Until now only a paid account could update in place. Everyone else was sent back to the website for each new version, which meant most people were running whatever they first downloaded, through every fix since. Any signed-in account now updates itself, free or Pro. Alongside that, this release fixes three ways the uninstaller could go wrong, one of which left a controller hidden from every game with no app left to un-hide it, and stops a reinstall from being able to delete your profiles. Forty-four new game presets bring the catalog to 449.
Highlights
- OmniControl updates itself for any signed-in account, free or Pro. It used to require a licence, so most people never received a fix unless they went and downloaded one.
- It keeps checking while it is open, and again when you come back to the window, instead of once at startup. An install that opened with no connection used to wait until the next restart.
- Forty-four new game presets: Overwatch 2, Halo Infinite, Warframe, Team Fortress 2, DayZ, Ready or Not, Elden Ring Nightreign, Silksong, Armored Core VI, Oblivion Remastered, Metal Gear Solid Delta, Split Fiction, Hades II, DiRT Rally 2.0, Le Mans Ultimate, SnowRunner, Ace Combat 7, skate., Tony Hawk 3 + 4, Civilization VII, Frostpunk 2, Silent Hill f and more. The catalog is now 449.
- OmniControl asks you to sign in when it starts, instead of waiting until you touch something that needs an account. Signing in is what unlocks the engine and what keeps the app up to date, and it was possible to install it and never realise.
- You can add an email when you create an account. Password resets are sent by email, so an account made inside the app is no longer impossible to recover. It is optional and the app says what skipping it costs.
Fixes
- Uninstalling could leave a controller hidden from every game, with no app left to un-hide it. A silent uninstall skipped the cleanup entirely, and if you declined the Windows permission prompt it carried on as though it had worked. It now runs in both cases and tells you plainly when it could not.
- Reinstalling could delete everything. Running the installer over an existing copy launches the old uninstaller first, which showed a Delete application data checkbox in the middle of what looked like an upgrade. Your profiles, macros, game setups and crosshairs are now kept through any reinstall, and a real uninstall names exactly what it is about to remove.
- A local privilege escalation in the uninstaller, which wrote a cleanup script to a shared temporary folder and then ran it with administrator rights.
- A failed update could make the app open and close again on every launch, with nothing on screen to explain it. It now stops after two attempts and says the update did not finish.
- The installer no longer downloads a component from the internet while installing. It is included, so installing works on a machine with no connection to Microsoft and there is one less thing to go wrong.
- Creating an account with an email that is already in use, or with an address that is not valid, now says so instead of Something went wrong.
- The installer finally carries a publisher name in its file properties, which was blank on every version before this.
Everyone updates now
The update check has always been there. It just refused anyone without a licence.
The reasoning made sense once: the signed update manifest is how a paid build is delivered, so it was gated like one. The effect was different. Every free account was sent back to the website for each new version, and most of them never went. So the majority of installs were sitting on whatever they first downloaded, through every fix released since, with nothing on screen suggesting otherwise.
The installer was never the paid part. Pro is unlocked by your account when the app asks the server, not by which file you downloaded. So the gate protected nothing and cost a great deal.
Any signed-in account now updates in place, free or paid. It also checks more than once: every few hours while the app is open, and whenever you come back to the window, which is usually the moment a connection that failed at startup has returned.
The uninstaller
Three separate faults, all in the code that runs when you remove OmniControl.
If you had used "Hide my controller", uninstalling was supposed to give that controller back to your games. A silent uninstall skipped that step completely, which is what deployment tools and clean-reinstall instructions use. And if the Windows permission prompt appeared and you said no, the uninstaller treated that as success. Either way you could be left with a controller hidden from every game and no app left to un-hide it.
Both are fixed, and the result is now checked rather than assumed: if the cleanup did not run, it says so and tells you how to fix it by hand.
The third was worse in principle. The cleanup script was written to a shared temporary folder and then run with administrator rights, which is a door that should not exist. It is gone.
Reinstalling is not uninstalling
Running the installer over an existing copy makes Windows launch the old uninstaller first. That uninstaller shows a "Delete application data" checkbox, in the middle of what you believe is an upgrade. Tick it and every profile, macro, game setup and saved crosshair goes with it.
Your data is now kept through any reinstall, whatever that checkbox says. A genuine uninstall still offers to remove it, but it names what it is about to destroy and defaults to keeping it.