The Windows client

On a Windows PC you can play MU Dawnrise as a program of its own instead of in the browser. It is one folder, MU Dawnrise, with MuDawnrise.exe and the game data already inside, so the first time you open it you go straight to Play. After that it updates itself and its data.

What you need: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, and about 585 MB for the download. You need more free space than that once it is extracted. On a Mac or on Linux there is no client: play in the browser instead.

Download and extract it

1. On the home page, click Download for Windows (direct link). The file is MuDawnrise-windows.zip.
2. Open your Downloads folder, right-click the zip and choose Extract All. Pick a folder of your own, such as Documents, and extract.
3. Keep the MU Dawnrise folder as it is: MuDawnrise.exe needs the Data, fonts and browser folders and the .mudl folder beside it. Move the whole folder if you want it somewhere else.
4. Do not run MuDawnrise.exe from inside the zip. Windows lets you open the zip like a folder, but the game would not see the data that comes with it and would start downloading all of it again. Always extract it first.

You can delete the zip once it is extracted.

The first start: “Windows protected your PC”

The game is not signed with a publisher certificate, so the first time you open MuDawnrise.exe, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may show Windows protected your PC with an unknown publisher.

1. Click More info.
2. Click Run anyway.

You only see this for the file you downloaded. Updates the game downloads by itself start without it.

The start screen: Play and Options

MuDawnrise.exe opens on the MU Dawnrise picture. It first checks for a new version and for changes to the game data, then shows two buttons where the loading text was:

• Play goes to the login. Log in with your MU Dawnrise account, the same one you use in the browser and on Android. No account yet? Create one.
• Options opens a panel to choose Windowed or Fullscreen and a Resolution from your monitor’s list. Apply changes the window at once and saves it; Back leaves without changing anything.

The keyboard works too: the arrows or Tab move between buttons, Enter presses the highlighted one, and Esc closes the game from this screen. The version you have is shown in the bottom-left corner.

Like the Android app, the Windows client plays the game’s sound effects but no music.

Updates arrive by themselves

Every time you open the game it checks the server, within a few seconds. If you are offline, it lets you play with what you have.

• A new version of the game: a notice with Update and Later appears over the picture. Update downloads the new version, swaps it in and restarts the game; Later keeps playing and it asks again next time. If your version is too old to keep playing, the notice offers Close instead of Later. If something fails, it shows Retry, and your current version still works.
• New game data: when the server’s data changes, the game downloads only the parts that changed before showing Play. You never download the whole game again.

Where the game keeps its data

Normally, in the MU Dawnrise folder itself, next to MuDawnrise.exe. Your settings (window mode and resolution) are saved there too, in config.ini.

That is why the best place for the folder is one you can write to, such as Documents. If you put it where Windows does not let programs write, such as Program Files:

• your settings are not saved between sessions;
• the game cannot update itself there: it tells you which version is out and that you can download it from mudawnrise.com;
• if that folder does not hold the game data either (for example MuDawnrise.exe alone), the game keeps its data in %LOCALAPPDATA%\MuDawnrise instead.

If something goes wrong

• The game closes or does not start: open MuError.log, in the folder where the game keeps its data (normally MU Dawnrise). Its last lines say what the game was doing when it stopped. If you report the problem, include that file.
• SmartScreen gave no “Run anyway” button: click More info first; the button appears after it.
• It starts downloading all the game data: check that you extracted the whole zip and are running MuDawnrise.exe from the extracted MU Dawnrise folder, not from inside the zip.