Rust for Windows — documentation

This repo provides a comprehensive set of Rust crates for building Windows applications — from low-level API access to high-level declarative UI.

• Getting started
• Samples
• Releases

How these docs are organized

• User guide — one task-oriented page per crate.
• Internals — one page per crate on how it is built and maintained (the tool_bindings / tool_reactor / tool_package codegen pipeline, generated files, and conventions).
• API reference — generated rustdoc on docs.rs; follow the link on any guide page.

Crates

Core & projection

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows	Safer projection of C-style, COM, and WinRT APIs.	guide	internals
windows-sys	Zero-overhead raw bindings for C-style Windows APIs.	guide	internals
windows-core	Fundamental COM and Windows type support.	guide	internals

Error handling & strings

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-result	Windows error handling and propagation.	guide	internals
windows-strings	Windows string interop types and macros.	guide	internals

Values & collections

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-numerics	Graphics math types (vectors and matrices).	guide	internals
windows-collections	Stock WinRT collection types.	guide	internals
windows-reference	Stock IReference<T> implementation.	guide	internals
windows-time	WinRT TimeSpan and DateTime.	guide	internals

Async & threading

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-future	WinRT async bridged to Rust futures.	guide	internals
windows-threading	Safe wrapper over the Win32 thread pool.	guide	internals

System services

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-registry	Safe Windows registry access.	guide	internals
windows-services	Author Windows services in Rust.	guide	internals
windows-version	Query the Windows version at runtime.	guide	internals

COM macros & linking

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-implement	#[implement] proc macro for COM/WinRT.	guide	internals
windows-interface	#[interface] proc macro for COM interfaces.	guide	internals
windows-link	Raw-dylib import support (link!).	guide	internals
windows-targets	Import libs for older compilers.	guide	internals

UI & graphics (experimental)

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-reactor	Declarative UI library backed by WinUI 3.	guide	internals
windows-canvas	2D graphics built on Direct2D.	guide	internals
windows-animation	Wrapper around the Windows Animation Manager.	guide	internals
windows-reactor-setup	Windows App Runtime installer for reactor apps.	guide	internals

Codegen & metadata tooling

Crate	Description	Guide	Internals
windows-bindgen	Code generator for Windows metadata.	guide	internals
windows-metadata	Low-level ECMA-335 metadata library.	guide	internals
windows-rdl	RDL parser and ECMA-335 generator.	guide	internals
riddle	Windows metadata compiler.	guide	internals
cppwinrt	Bundles the C++/WinRT compiler.	guide	internals