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Windows Setup Guide

MattKC edited this page May 14, 2026 · 4 revisions

Vanilla officially supports Windows, but only as a frontend. This is because there is currently no established way to achieve the 802.11n PTK rotation necessary to connect to the Wii U on Windows.

Therefore, a Windows frontend must be accompanied by a compatible pipe. Currently, this can either be another Linux PC on the network, or a Linux virtual machine with direct access to the Wi-Fi hardware.

Virtual Machine

Running Linux in a virtual machine will generally be the most convenient way to run vanilla-pipe, however there are some caveats.

Firstly, the virtual machine must have direct access to your wireless hardware. Setting up standard NAT or bridged networking with the host will not work because the virtual machine will see it as an Ethernet connection. Direct hardware access is usually achieved through some kind of USB or PCI-e "passthrough".

Secondly, due to limitations in Windows, you will most likely only able to passthrough USB Wi-Fi devices. If your wireless hardware is PCI-e, you will not be able to pass it through to a virtual machine for usage with Vanilla (unless you happen to be using Windows Server and Hyper-V, which is not common). You will need to acquire a secondary compatible USB Wi-Fi adapter if you want to use Vanilla.

Further instructions for setting up a Linux virtual machine can be found on the Pipe page.

Can I use WSL?

No. WSL does not get direct access to Wi-Fi hardware, so it cannot be used for Vanilla.

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