Set up your Navarre server on a Windows PC

On a PC, Navarre for Windows does the whole thing itself. It checks what the machine already has, writes the files, starts the server, asks you once for the one Windows permission it needs, and ends by telling you the address to type on your television. You click twice.

Doing this on something else? A NAS is one paste into its Docker app, and a Linux box is the same file plus one terminal line. Already running Plex, Emby, or Jellyfin 10.11 or 12 on this PC? That works today: open Navarre and point it at the server you have.

What you need

  • Windows 10 or 11 on a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor (x86-64; the server does not run on ARM), and Navarre for Windows from the download page.
  • Docker Desktop, installed and running. Navarre checks for it and says so if it is missing, too old, or installed but not started. Get it from docker.com.
  • A folder of films on this PC or on a drive attached to it. It is mounted read-only: this server cannot write to, move, rename, or delete anything in your media, ever.
  • A PC that stays awake. Navarre offers to arrange that, on mains power only.

Where it puts things

C:\NavarreServer\docker-compose.yml     the recipe, written for you
C:\NavarreServer\data                   the server's own data - BACK THIS UP
C:\NavarreServer\allow-through-firewall.ps1
C:\NavarreServer\keep-this-pc-awake.ps1

Back up C:\NavarreServer\data. It is the only thing here that cannot be rebuilt: your libraries, everybody's accounts, and what they have watched. Your films are somewhere else and Navarre never writes to them.

The two scripts are written to disk before anything runs them, so you can read every line before you allow it, and run them yourself if you would rather.

The setup, start to finish

  1. Windows PCInstall Navarre for Windows and choose Set up Navarre, then On this PC.
  2. Windows PCNavarre checks what the PC already has: Docker, its compose plugin, and whether the engine is actually running. Docker Desktop installed but not started is the most likely state on a machine that has just rebooted, and it gets its own card rather than a failure.
  3. Windows PCTell it where your films live. Navarre picks the folders above for itself, so there is nothing to choose about them.
  4. Windows PCIt writes the files and starts the server. The very first start also unpacks the server itself, which can take a couple of minutes on a slow connection.
  5. One Windows promptThe firewall. Windows blocks other devices from reaching this PC, and it does it silently - no box pops up asking, so nothing looks wrong until your TV cannot find the server. Navarre shows you the exact rule, then Windows asks you to allow it once. It is one rule, on your chosen port, on your home network only.
  6. One Windows promptSleep. If Windows puts this PC to sleep, your server sleeps with it, so films stop half way. Navarre offers to stop that while the PC is plugged in. Battery settings are not touched, and your screen still turns off on its own schedule.
  7. Windows PCChoose your name and password, in the app. It goes straight to your own server over your home network and is never written to a file.
  8. Windows PCNavarre shows you every folder it found, with a proposed library beside it. Rename one, change what kind it is, or leave it out. Then it builds your libraries and connects the server to your Navarre account, which switches on artwork and details for anything your folders do not already describe.
  9. TV and phoneType the address Navarre ends on. This is the only thing in the whole setup you have to type anywhere else, and the next section says why.

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Why the TV has to be told the address

A server on a NAS announces itself to the house, so the apps find it with nothing typed. One inside Docker Desktop on a PC cannot: Docker Desktop has no host networking on Windows, so the server is reached by address rather than found by broadcast. Navarre tells you the address instead of promising your TV a search that could not work.

Open Navarre on your television, choose Connect to your server, and type it in. Once.

Your server runs while Docker Desktop runs. In Docker Desktop's own settings, turn on Start Docker Desktop when you sign in, or your household loses the server every time this PC restarts. That is Docker's setting in Docker's app, and Navarre does not change it for you.

The two scripts, in full

Neither one is hidden. This is the firewall rule, and the first line is what makes it safe to run more than once - it clears any older Navarre rule and touches nothing else in your firewall:

Remove-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'Navarre server (LAN)' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'Navarre server (LAN)' -Direction Inbound -Action Allow -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 8096 -Profile Private

It is on the Private profile, never on all of them: the server is for your home network, and a rule on the public profile is a rule that follows a laptop to a coffee shop. To undo it:

Remove-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'Navarre server (LAN)'

And this is the sleep change. It is mains power only, on purpose: a laptop on its battery should still go to sleep.

powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-ac 0

To undo it, set Sleep after back in Windows' own Power & battery settings, or run powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 30 with whatever number of minutes you want.

If you decline either one, nothing is broken. Without the firewall rule the server works on this PC and nowhere else, and you can allow it later from Settings. Without the sleep change your server is there when the PC is, and asleep when it is not.

If Docker Desktop is not there yet

Navarre still writes everything, and leaves you one command - the same one it would have run itself. Once Docker Desktop is installed and running, open PowerShell and paste this, then come back and press Look again:

cd C:\NavarreServer
docker compose -p navarre-server up -d

Two things to know about a PC server

  • There is no hardware transcoding on a PC through Docker. /dev/dri is not there on Windows, on either engine. A modern desktop processor does roughly ten simultaneous 1080p conversions in software, measured, so for most households this changes nothing - but nothing here will pretend the graphics chip is being used.
  • The port is 8096 unless you change it. That is the number every media-server guide on the internet uses, so it is the one your other tools already expect. If something on this PC already has it, change the first number on the ports line in the file and use the new one when the app asks for the address.

Stuck anywhere? The Help & FAQ covers the questions people actually hit, and support@navarre.tv reaches a human. Keeping it up to date is one line and two commands.