Fan Control reads hardware through PawnIO now, and WinRing0 is gone

The repository is a file drop: a zip, an updater and a version file

The top level holds FanControl.zip, Updater.exe, version.json, Images/, README.md, LICENSE and a .github directory. There is no source directory, no build file and no package manifest, and the project states plainly that sources for this software are closed. That shapes what you can do with the repository. You cannot build it, read a diff before an update, or check what a change does to your hardware access, because there is nothing to read. What is left is a licence file and a stream of release assets. If your process needs to know what ships in a build before it runs with kernel level hardware access, this repository cannot answer that, and the fact that FanControl.exe, its installer and the updater carry a signed executable is the only assurance on offer against antivirus false flags.

V238 removed WinRing0 after Defender started flagging it

The driver story changed at V238 and above, which ship a PawnIO build of LHM, LibreHardwareMonitor. Before that, FanControl used WinRing0, whose FanControl.sys shipped in V237 and below and is flagged as Trojan:Win32/Vigorf.A by Windows Defender as of 09/04/2025, with the symptom being sensors that are not detected at all. The project recommends updating to V238 or later as the fix. A separate entry notes the FaceIT issue was fixed with the 2.1.0 PawnIO version. Two consequences. An old install is both flagged and functionally degraded, so an empty sensor list is a reason to update rather than to debug. And because hardware coverage now comes through PawnIO and LHM, a sensor that never appears on a current build may be a gap in that chain, not a fault in your curve.

Starting on boot as a service leaves a scheduled task behind on uninstall

The newest announcement item is that Fan Control can be started on boot as a service, without any user session, which means it no longer needs someone logged in to control fans. That has an uninstall consequence spelled out in the notes. For a portable install you can leave the files for later or delete them, but if the program is set to start automatically with Windows you either untick the checkbox inside Fan Control or manually delete the Fan Control task in Windows Task Scheduler. So deleting the folder is not a complete removal: the entry survives and points at a path that is gone. An installer install behaves differently and uninstalls through the Windows Programs list, which is the cleaner path if you want the machine returned to its original state.

Four ways to install, and only the installer registers an uninstall entry

The documented routes are the portable archive at /FanControl.zip?raw=true, an installer from the release page, and three package managers. Scoop needs the extras bucket first:

scoop bucket add extras
scoop install fancontrol

Winget uses winget install Rem0o.FanControl, and Chocolatey uses choco install fancontrol. Either way you end up with FanControl.exe to start. The consequence is that the choice of route decides what happens at removal time. The installer uninstalls through the Programs list, while a portable install is removed by deleting its files, which is exactly the case where the scheduled startup task has to be removed by hand. Pick the route by how you plan to undo it, not only by how fast the download is. First launch runs a guided setup, so the sensors and curves are built through a wizard, and the long form documentation lives at getfancontrol.com/docs rather than inside this repository.

Avoid points create a dead band where the fan speed will not follow the sensor

Calibration avoid points are the newest tuning feature, and they exist for a physical reason: some percentage bands make a fan rattle or emit an annoying noise. You mark those values so the fan never runs at that percentage. Under the hood the tool offers advanced tuning with steps, start %, stop %, response time and hysteresis, curves can be mixed or sensors combined with max, min or average, and the graph editor lets you draw a custom function. The consequence of avoid points is that the fan will not run at the percentages you excluded, even where your curve passes through them. Curves sit inside profiles you can save, edit and load, with a choice of theme and colour, and the temperature sources run past CPU and GPU to motherboards and hard drives.

Most extra sensors come from plugins that live in other repositories

The plugin system injects any type of sensor, and the details live in a wiki page rather than in this repository. Three plugins come from the author: IntelCtlLibrary for Intel ARC GPU support, HWInfo to import HWInfo sensor data, and DellPlugin for old Dell laptops and some towers. The community table is much longer and includes Thermaltake devices as an updated fork, LiquidCtl for AIO devices through liquidctl, AsusWMI for ASUS motherboards, Aquacomputer models, GPU-Z and AIDA64 sensor readings, CorsairLink and Razer hardware, LianLi L-Connect 3 controllers, Nvidia Hot Spot and Memory Junction temperatures, HomeAssistant sensors, and an NZXT Kraken plugin for models not yet in LHM. The table carries a request to be told about missing ones, which is the honest signal here. A sensor you expected and did not get is more often an absent plugin than a defect, and every community entry lives in somebody else's repository with its own release history.

V279, V280 and V281 all landed within two days

The three most recent releases are V283 on 2026-10-11, V284 on 2026-10-18 and V285 on 2026-11-02, on a default branch called master, with the last push on 2026-11-02. Cadence that tight means build numbers are your only way to describe what a colleague is running, so put the version in your notes when a fan behaves oddly. The repository root carries version.json and Updater.exe, which is how the updater knows what to fetch, and the release page is where the signed installer lives for people who do not want the portable zip. Support for the project runs through PayPal donations and a Stripe purchase link next to the download, while the tool itself is described as free to use. Hardware compatibility gets its own section in the README, written in prose, because there is no code here for a reader to check a claim against.

Editorial conclusion

Use Fan Control when you want per machine curves with steps, hysteresis and a graph editor, and when the sensors you need are already covered by LibreHardwareMonitor or by a plugin you are willing to install from its own repository. Do not stay on a build older than V238, and do not treat this repository as something you can audit, since it holds a zip, an updater and no source. Before you rely on it, confirm your sensors appear at all, check whether the hardware you are chasing needs a plugin such as the Intel ARC, HWInfo or Dell one, and decide whether a scheduled startup task is what you want after an uninstall.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. README
3. Releases
4. Rem0o/FanControl.Releases on GitHub