Installation instructions for Windows

Installing from Chocolatey

For master branch:

choco install geth-stable

For more information see https://chocolatey.org/packages/geth-stable

For develop branch:

choco install geth-latest

For more information see https://chocolatey.org/packages/geth-latest

Building from source

1. Install Git from http://git-scm.com/downloads
2. Install Golang from https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.4.2.windows-amd64.msi
3. Install winbuilds from http://win-builds.org/1.5.0/win-builds-1.5.0.exe to c:\winbuilds
4. Run win builds here. It's safe to remove big dependencies like QT and GTK which aren't needed. An exact list of dependencies should be determined
5. Setup environment paths
6. Add GOROOT pointed to c:\go and GOPATH to c:\godev (you are free to pick these paths).
7. Set PATH to %PATH%;%GOROOT%\bin;%GOPATH%\bin;c:\winbuilds\bin
8. Open a terminal and install godep first: go get -u github.com/tools/godep
9. Open a terminal and download go-ethereum go get -d -u github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum
10. Try building ethereum with go dep, navigate to c:\godev\src\github.com\ethereum\go-ethereum\cmd\geth and run git checkout develop && godep go install

If you want to build from an other branch bypass godep go install for go install and checkout the dependencies manually.

Powershell script for building with Cygwin

Warning: This installation method currently fails to link properly. Giving the message "ld: cannot find -lmingwex" and "ld: cannot find -lmingw32"

#REQUIRES -Version 3.0

# Set local directory paths
$basedir = $env:USERPROFILE
$downloaddir = "$basedir\Downloads"

# Set Go variables
$golangroot = "$basedir\golang"
$gosrcroot = "$basedir\go"
$golangdl = "https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/"

# Set cygwin variables
$cygwinroot = "$basedir\cygwin"
$cygwinpackages = "gcc-g++,binutils,make,git,gmp,libgmp10,libgmp-devel"
$cygwinmirror = "http://cygwin.mirrorcatalogs.com"
$cygwindl = "https://cygwin.com/"

# Finalize paths based on processor architecture
if ($ENV:PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE -eq "AMD64") {
  $golangdl = $golangdl + "go1.5.1.windows-amd64.zip"
  $cygwindl = $cygwindl + "setup-x86_64.exe"
} else {
  $golangdl = $golangdl + "go1.5.1.windows-386.zip"
  $cygwindl = $cygwindl + "setup-x86.exe"
}

# Download dependencies
Invoke-WebRequest $cygwindl -UseBasicParsing -OutFile "$downloaddir\cygwin-setup.exe"
Invoke-WebRequest $golangdl -UseBasicParsing -OutFile "$downloaddir\golang.zip"

# Install Cygwin & dependencies
Invoke-Expression "$downloaddir\cygwin-setup.exe --root $cygwinroot --site $cygwinmirror --no-admin --quiet-mode --packages=$cygwinpackages"
# Install Golang
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory("$downloaddir\golang.zip", $golangroot)

# Set environment variables
# Only works locally
$env:GOROOT = "$golangroot\go"
$env:GOPATH = $gosrcroot
$env:PATH = "$env:PATH;$cygwinroot\bin;$golangroot\go\bin;$gosrcroot\bin"
# Only works in new sessions
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("GOROOT", $env:GOROOT, "User")
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("GOPATH", $env:GOPATH, "User")
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $env:PATH, "User")


# Download go-ethereum source
go get github.com/tools/godep
git clone https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum $env:GOPATH/src/github.com
cd $env:GOPATH/src/github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum
godep go install .\cmd\geth