Beginner's Guide

This guide walks you through everything you need to start using InControl Desktop, from installation to your first conversation.

What is InControl Desktop?

InControl Desktop is a local AI chat application for Windows. It connects to a local LLM backend (such as Ollama) running on your machine and provides a native desktop interface for conversing with large language models. No data leaves your computer — all inference runs locally on your GPU.

InControl is built for users who want privacy, control, and GPU-accelerated performance without relying on cloud services.

Prerequisites

Before installing InControl, make sure you have:

• Windows 10 version 1809 or later (Windows 11 recommended)
• .NET 9.0 Runtime — download from dot.net if not already installed
• An NVIDIA GPU — minimum RTX 3060 (8 GB VRAM), recommended RTX 4080/5080 (16 GB VRAM)
• Ollama — the recommended local LLM backend. Install from ollama.ai/download

To verify .NET is installed, open a terminal and run:

dotnet --list-runtimes

You should see a line containing Microsoft.NETCore.App 9.0 or later.

Installation

Option A: MSIX installer (recommended)

1. Go to the Releases page.
2. Download the latest .msix file.
3. Double-click the file to install.
4. Launch InControl from the Start Menu.

Option B: Build from source

git clone https://github.com/mcp-tool-shop-org/InControl-Desktop.git
cd InControl-Desktop
dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet run --project src/InControl.App

First-run walkthrough

When you launch InControl for the first time, the onboarding wizard guides you through four steps:

1. Welcome — introduces InControl and confirms that everything runs locally.
2. Backend Check — InControl looks for a running Ollama instance on localhost:11434. If Ollama is not running, start it with ollama serve in a separate terminal.
3. Model Selection — pick a model from those available on your Ollama instance. If you have no models yet, pull one first: ollama pull llama3.2.
4. Ready — you are all set. Click “Start” to begin your first conversation.

You can skip onboarding if you prefer to configure things manually.

Core concepts

Conversations and sessions

Each conversation is stored as a session file in %LOCALAPPDATA%\InControl\sessions\. Sessions are local JSON files — they are never uploaded anywhere. You can export conversations from the app and delete them at any time.

Connectivity modes

InControl has three network modes that you control:

Mode	What it means
Offline Only	No network access at all. Everything stays local. This is the default.
Assisted	Network requests require per-endpoint approval before they execute.
Connected	Full network access, but every request is logged to the audit trail.

You can switch modes at any time from the connectivity panel. If anything feels wrong, the “Go Offline” button cuts all network activity instantly.

Assistant profiles

InControl lets you adjust how the assistant communicates:

• Default — professional tone, concise answers, explains when asked.
• Minimal — brief answers, minimal explanation, fewer warnings. Good for advanced users.
• Detailed — longer answers, proactive explanation, more cautious. Good for learning.

Plugins

InControl supports plugins that extend what the assistant can do. Each plugin declares the permissions it needs in a manifest file. You review and approve permissions before a plugin can run. Plugins are sandboxed so they can only access what they declare.

Key settings

The most important settings to know about:

Setting	Where	What it controls
Theme	App settings	Light, Dark, or System theme
Default Model	Inference settings	Which model loads by default
Temperature	Inference settings	Creativity of responses (lower = more focused, higher = more varied)
Context Size	Ollama settings	How much conversation history the model sees (in tokens)
GPU Layers	Ollama settings	How much of the model runs on GPU vs CPU (-1 = all on GPU)

See the Configuration page for the full list.

Troubleshooting for beginners

“No models available” after launch

Ollama needs to be running and have at least one model pulled:

ollama serve          # start the server
ollama pull llama3.2  # download a model

Then restart InControl or re-run the backend check.

App launches but shows a blank screen

Make sure .NET 9.0 Runtime is installed. Run dotnet --list-runtimes to check. If it is missing, install it from dot.net.

Responses are very slow

• Check that your GPU is being used: the Ollama logs will show CUDA loading on startup.
• Try a smaller model (e.g., llama3.2 instead of a 70B variant).
• In Ollama settings, make sure GPU Layers is set to -1 (offload everything to GPU).

“Connection refused” errors

Ollama defaults to http://localhost:11434. Confirm it is running with:

curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags

If you changed the Ollama port, update the BaseUrl in Inference:Ollama settings to match.

How do I report a bug?

1. Open InControl and use the “Copy Diagnostics” feature to create a support bundle. This includes logs and system info but never your conversation content.
2. Open an issue on GitHub and attach the support bundle.