<!-- doc/src/sgml/install-windows.sgml -->

<chapter id="install-windows">
 <title>Installation from Source Code on <productname>Windows</productname></title>

 <indexterm>
  <primary>installation</primary>
  <secondary>on Windows</secondary>
 </indexterm>

 <para>
  It is recommended that most users download the binary distribution for
  Windows, available as a graphical installer package
  from the <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> website at
  <ulink url="https://www.postgresql.org/download/"></ulink>. Building from source
  is only intended for people developing <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>
  or extensions.
 </para>

 <para>
  There are several different ways of building PostgreSQL on
  <productname>Windows</productname>. The simplest way to build with
  Microsoft tools is to install <productname>Visual Studio 2026</productname>
  and use the included compiler. It is also possible to build with the full
  <productname>Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 to 2026</productname>.
  In some cases that requires the installation of the
  <productname>Windows SDK</productname> in addition to the compiler.
 </para>

 <para>
  It is also possible to build PostgreSQL using the GNU compiler tools
  provided by <productname>MinGW</productname>, or using
  <productname>Cygwin</productname> for older versions of
  <productname>Windows</productname>.
 </para>

 <para>
  Building using <productname>MinGW</productname> or
  <productname>Cygwin</productname> uses the normal build system, see
  <xref linkend="installation"/> and the specific notes in
  <xref linkend="installation-notes-mingw"/> and <xref linkend="installation-notes-cygwin"/>.
  To produce native 64 bit binaries in these environments, use the tools from
  <productname>MinGW-w64</productname>. These tools can also be used to
  cross-compile for 32 bit and 64 bit <productname>Windows</productname>
  targets on other hosts, such as <productname>Linux</productname> and
  <productname>macOS</productname>.
  <productname>Cygwin</productname> is not recommended for running a
  production server, and it should only be used for running on
  older versions of <productname>Windows</productname> where
  the native build does not work. The official
  binaries are built using <productname>Visual Studio</productname>.
 </para>

 <para>
  Native builds of <application>psql</application> don't support command
  line editing. The <productname>Cygwin</productname> build does support
  command line editing, so it should be used where psql is needed for
  interactive use on  <productname>Windows</productname>.
 </para>

 <sect1 id="install-windows-full">
  <title>Building with <productname>Visual C++</productname> or the
  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname></title>

 <para>
  PostgreSQL can be built using the Visual C++ compiler suite from Microsoft.
  These compilers can be either from <productname>Visual Studio</productname>,
  <productname>Visual Studio Express</productname> or some versions of the
  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname>. If you do not already have a
  <productname>Visual Studio</productname> environment set up, the easiest
  ways are to use the compilers from
  <productname>Visual Studio 2026</productname> or those in the
  <productname>Windows SDK 10</productname>, which are both free downloads
  from Microsoft.
 </para>

 <para>
  Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are possible with the Microsoft Compiler suite.
  32-bit PostgreSQL builds are possible with
  <productname>Visual Studio 2013</productname> to
  <productname>Visual Studio 2026</productname>,
  as well as standalone Windows SDK releases 8.1a to 10.
  64-bit PostgreSQL builds are supported with
  <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> version 8.1a to 10 or
  <productname>Visual Studio 2013</productname> and above. Compilation
  is supported down to <productname>Windows 7</productname> and
  <productname>Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1</productname> when building with
  <productname>Visual Studio 2013</productname> to
  <productname>Visual Studio 2026</productname>.
   <!--
       For 2013 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2013-sysrequirements-vs
       For 2015 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2015-sysrequirements-vs
       For 2017 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/productinfo/vs2017-system-requirements-vs
       For 2019 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/system-requirements
       For 2022 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2022/system-requirements
       For 2026 requirements:
       https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2026/vs-system-requirements
   -->
 </para>

 <para>
  The tools for building using <productname>Visual C++</productname> or
  <productname>Platform SDK</productname> are in the
  <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename> directory. When building, make sure
  there are no tools from <productname>MinGW</productname> or
  <productname>Cygwin</productname> present in your system PATH. Also, make
  sure you have all the required Visual C++ tools available in the PATH. In
  <productname>Visual Studio</productname>, start the
  <application>Visual Studio Command Prompt</application>.
  If you wish to build a 64-bit version, you must use the 64-bit version of
  the command, and vice versa.
  Starting with <productname>Visual Studio 2017</productname> this can be
  done from the command line using <command>VsDevCmd.bat</command>, see
  <command>-help</command> for the available options and their default values.
  <command>vsvars32.bat</command> is available in
  <productname>Visual Studio 2015</productname> and earlier versions for the
  same purpose.
  From the <application>Visual Studio Command Prompt</application>, you can
  change the targeted CPU architecture, build type, and target OS by using the
  <command>vcvarsall.bat</command> command, e.g.,
  <command>vcvarsall.bat x64 10.0.10240.0</command> to target Windows 10
  with a 64-bit release build. See <command>-help</command> for the other
  options of <command>vcvarsall.bat</command>. All commands should be run from
  the <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename> directory.
 </para>

 <para>
  Before you build, you can create the file <filename>config.pl</filename>
  to reflect any configuration options you want to change, or the paths to
  any third party libraries to use. The complete configuration is determined
  by first reading and parsing the file <filename>config_default.pl</filename>,
  and then apply any changes from <filename>config.pl</filename>. For example,
  to specify the location of your <productname>Python</productname> installation,
  put the following in <filename>config.pl</filename>:
<programlisting>
$config->{python} = 'c:\python26';
</programlisting>
  You only need to specify those parameters that are different from what's in
  <filename>config_default.pl</filename>.
 </para>

 <para>
  If you need to set any other environment variables, create a file called
  <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> and put the required commands there. For
  example, to add the path for bison when it's not in the PATH, create a file
  containing:
<programlisting>
$ENV{PATH}=$ENV{PATH} . ';c:\some\where\bison\bin';
</programlisting>
 </para>

 <para>
  To pass additional command line arguments to the Visual Studio build
  command (msbuild or vcbuild):
<programlisting>
$ENV{MSBFLAGS}="/m";
</programlisting>
 </para>

 <sect2>
  <title>Requirements</title>
  <para>
   The following additional products are required to build
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. Use the
   <filename>config.pl</filename> file to specify which directories the libraries
   are available in.

   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      If your build environment doesn't ship with a supported version of the
      <productname>Microsoft Windows SDK</productname> it
      is recommended that you upgrade to the latest version (currently
      version 10), available for download from
      <ulink url="https://www.microsoft.com/download"></ulink>.
     </para>
     <para>
      You must always include the
      <application>Windows Headers and Libraries</application> part of the SDK.
      If you install a <productname>Windows SDK</productname>
      including the <application>Visual C++ Compilers</application>,
      you don't need <productname>Visual Studio</productname> to build.
      Note that as of Version 8.0a the Windows SDK no longer ships with a
      complete command-line build environment.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Strawberry Perl</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Strawberry Perl is required to run the build generation scripts. MinGW
      or Cygwin Perl will not work. It must also be present in the PATH.
      Binaries can be downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://strawberryperl.com"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

   </variablelist>
  </para>
  <para>
   The following additional products are not required to get started,
   but are required to build the complete package. Use the
   <filename>config.pl</filename> file to specify which directories the libraries
   are available in.

   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Magicsplat Tcl</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for building <application>PL/Tcl</application>.
      Binaries can be downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://www.magicsplat.com/tcl-installer/index.html"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Bison</productname> and
      <productname>Flex</productname></term>
     <listitem>
     <para>
      <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname> are
      required to build from Git, but not required when building from a release
      file. Only <productname>Bison</productname> 1.875 or versions 2.2 and later
      will work. <productname>Flex</productname> must be version 2.5.31 or later.
     </para>

     <para>
      Both <productname>Bison</productname> and <productname>Flex</productname>
      are included in the <productname>msys</productname> tool suite, available
      from <ulink url="http://www.mingw.org/wiki/MSYS"></ulink> as part of the
      <productname>MinGW</productname> compiler suite.
     </para>

     <para>
      You will need to add the directory containing
      <filename>flex.exe</filename> and <filename>bison.exe</filename> to the
      PATH environment variable in <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> unless
      they are already in PATH. In the case of MinGW, the directory is the
      <filename>\msys\1.0\bin</filename> subdirectory of your MinGW
      installation directory.
     </para>

     <note>
      <para>
        The Bison distribution from GnuWin32 appears to have a bug that
        causes Bison to malfunction when installed in a directory with
        spaces in the name, such as the default location on English
        installations <filename>C:\Program Files\GnuWin32</filename>.
        Consider installing into <filename>C:\GnuWin32</filename> or use the
        NTFS short name path to GnuWin32 in your PATH environment setting
        (e.g., <filename>C:\PROGRA~1\GnuWin32</filename>).
       </para>
     </note>

     </listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Diff</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Diff is required to run the regression tests, and can be downloaded
      from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Gettext</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Gettext is required to build with NLS support, and can be downloaded
      from <ulink url="http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net"></ulink>. Note that binaries,
      dependencies and developer files are all needed.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>MIT Kerberos</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for GSSAPI authentication support. MIT Kerberos can be
      downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/dist/index.html"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>libxml2</productname> and
      <productname>libxslt</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for XML support. Binaries can be downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml"></ulink> or source from
      <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org"></ulink>. Note that libxml2 requires iconv,
      which is available from the same download location.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>LZ4</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for supporting <productname>LZ4</productname> compression
      method for compressing the table data. Binaries and source can be
      downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://github.com/lz4/lz4/releases"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>OpenSSL</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for SSL support. Binaries can be downloaded from
      <ulink url="https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html"></ulink>
      or source from <ulink url="https://www.openssl.org"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>ossp-uuid</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for UUID-OSSP support (contrib only). Source can be
      downloaded from
      <ulink url="http://www.ossp.org/pkg/lib/uuid/"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>Python</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for building <application>PL/Python</application>. Binaries can
      be downloaded from <ulink url="https://www.python.org"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>zlib</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Required for compression support in <application>pg_dump</application>
      and <application>pg_restore</application>. Binaries can be downloaded
      from <ulink url="https://www.zlib.net"></ulink>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

   </variablelist>
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Special Considerations for 64-Bit Windows</title>

  <para>
   PostgreSQL will only build for the x64 architecture on 64-bit Windows, there
   is no support for Itanium processors.
  </para>

  <para>
   Mixing 32- and 64-bit versions in the same build tree is not supported.
   The build system will automatically detect if it's running in a 32- or
   64-bit environment, and build PostgreSQL accordingly. For this reason, it
   is important to start the correct command prompt before building.
  </para>

  <para>
   To use a server-side third party library such as <productname>python</productname> or
   <productname>OpenSSL</productname>, this library <emphasis>must</emphasis> also be
   64-bit. There is no support for loading a 32-bit library in a 64-bit
   server. Several of the third party libraries that PostgreSQL supports may
   only be available in 32-bit versions, in which case they cannot be used with
   64-bit PostgreSQL.
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Building</title>

  <para>
   To build all of PostgreSQL in release configuration (the default), run the
   command:
<screen>
<userinput>build</userinput>
</screen>
   To build all of PostgreSQL in debug configuration, run the command:
<screen>
<userinput>build DEBUG</userinput>
</screen>
   To build just a single project, for example psql, run the commands:
<screen>
<userinput>build psql</userinput>
<userinput>build DEBUG psql</userinput>
</screen>
   To change the default build configuration to debug, put the following
   in the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file:
<programlisting>
$ENV{CONFIG}="Debug";
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   It is also possible to build from inside the Visual Studio GUI. In this
   case, you need to run:
<screen>
<userinput>perl mkvcbuild.pl</userinput>
</screen>
   from the command prompt, and then open the generated
   <filename>pgsql.sln</filename> (in the root directory of the source tree)
   in Visual Studio.
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Cleaning and Installing</title>

  <para>
   Most of the time, the automatic dependency tracking in Visual Studio will
   handle changed files. But if there have been large changes, you may need
   to clean the installation. To do this, simply run the
   <filename>clean.bat</filename> command, which will automatically clean out
   all generated files. You can also run it with the
   <parameter>dist</parameter> parameter, in which case it will behave like
   <userinput>make distclean</userinput> and remove the flex/bison output files
   as well.
  </para>

  <para>
   By default, all files are written into a subdirectory of the
   <filename>debug</filename> or <filename>release</filename> directories. To
   install these files using the standard layout, and also generate the files
   required to initialize and use the database, run the command:
<screen>
<userinput>install c:\destination\directory</userinput>
</screen>
  </para>

  <para>
   If you want to install only the client applications and
   interface libraries, then you can use these commands:
<screen>
<userinput>install c:\destination\directory client</userinput>
</screen>
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Running the Regression Tests</title>

  <para>
   To run the regression tests, make sure you have completed the build of all
   required parts first. Also, make sure that the DLLs required to load all
   parts of the system (such as the Perl and Python DLLs for the procedural
   languages) are present in the system path. If they are not, set it through
   the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file. To run the tests, run one of
   the following commands from the <filename>src\tools\msvc</filename>
   directory:
<screen>
<userinput>vcregress check</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress installcheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress plcheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress contribcheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress modulescheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress ecpgcheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress isolationcheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress bincheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress recoverycheck</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress taptest</userinput>
<userinput>vcregress upgradecheck</userinput>
</screen>

   To change the schedule used (default is parallel), append it to the
   command line like:
<screen>
<userinput>vcregress check serial</userinput>
</screen>

   <command>vcregress taptest</command> can be used to run the TAP tests
   of a target directory, like:
<screen>
<userinput>vcregress taptest src\bin\initdb\</userinput>
</screen>

   For more information about the regression tests, see
   <xref linkend="regress"/>.
  </para>

  <para>
   Running the regression tests on client programs with
   <command>vcregress bincheck</command>, on recovery tests with
   <command>vcregress recoverycheck</command>, or TAP tests specified with
   <command>vcregress taptest</command> requires an additional Perl module
   to be installed:
   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
     <term><productname>IPC::Run</productname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      As of this writing, <literal>IPC::Run</literal> is not included in the
      ActiveState Perl installation, nor in the ActiveState Perl Package
      Manager (PPM) library. To install, download the
      <filename>IPC-Run-&lt;version&gt;.tar.gz</filename> source archive from CPAN,
      at <ulink url="https://metacpan.org/release/IPC-Run"></ulink>, and
      uncompress. Edit the <filename>buildenv.pl</filename> file, and add a PERL5LIB
      variable to point to the <filename>lib</filename> subdirectory from the
      extracted archive. For example:
<programlisting>
$ENV{PERL5LIB}=$ENV{PERL5LIB} . ';c:\IPC-Run-0.94\lib';
</programlisting>
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
   </variablelist>
  </para>

  <para>
   The TAP tests run with <command>vcregress</command> support the
   environment variables <varname>PROVE_TESTS</varname>, that is expanded
   automatically using the name patterns given, and
   <varname>PROVE_FLAGS</varname>. These can be set on a Windows terminal,
   before running <command>vcregress</command>:
<programlisting>
set PROVE_FLAGS=--timer --jobs 2
set PROVE_TESTS=t/020*.pl t/010*.pl
</programlisting>
   It is also possible to set up those parameters in
   <filename>buildenv.pl</filename>:
<programlisting>
$ENV{PROVE_FLAGS}='--timer --jobs 2'
$ENV{PROVE_TESTS}='t/020*.pl t/010*.pl'
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   Some of the TAP tests depend on a set of external commands that would
   optionally trigger tests related to them. Each one of those variables
   can be set or unset in <filename>buildenv.pl</filename>:
   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
     <term><varname>GZIP_PROGRAM</varname></term>
     <listitem><para>
       Path to a <application>gzip</application> command. The default is
       <literal>gzip</literal>, that would be the command found in
      <varname>PATH</varname>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><varname>LZ4</varname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Path to a <application>lz4</application> command. The default is
      <literal>lz4</literal>, that would be the command found in
      <varname>PATH</varname>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry>
     <term><varname>TAR</varname></term>
     <listitem><para>
      Path to a <application>tar</application> command. The default is
      <literal>tar</literal>, that would be the command found in
      <varname>PATH</varname>.
     </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
   </variablelist>
  </para>
 </sect2>

 </sect1>
</chapter>
