Building Tahoe-LAFS on Windows¶

If you are looking to hack on the source code or run pre-release code, we recommend you create a virtualenv instance and install Tahoe-LAFS into that:

Make sure you have Powershell installed. See PowerShell installation.
Install the latest version of Python 3. Download the .exe file at the python website.
Open the installer by double-clicking it. Select the Add Python to PATH check-box, then click Install Now.
Start PowerShell and enter the following command to verify python installation:
```
python --version
```
Use pip to install virtualenv:
```
pip install --user virtualenv
```
Create a fresh virtualenv for your Tahoe-LAFS install using the following command:
```
virtualenv venv
```

Note

venv is the name of the virtual environment in this example. Use any name for your environment.

Use pip to install Tahoe-LAFS in the virtualenv instance:
```
venv\Scripts\pip install tahoe-lafs
```

Verify installation by checking for the version:
```
venv\Scripts\tahoe --version
```

If you do not want to use the full path, i.e. venv\Scripts\tahoe everytime you want to run tahoe, you can:

Activate the virtualenv:
```
. venv\Scripts\activate
```
This will generate a subshell with a $PATH that includes the venv\Scripts\ directory.
Change your $PATH to include the venv\Scripts directory.