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How to install Django on Windows

This document will guide you through installing Python and Django for basic usage on Windows. This is meant as a beginner’s guide for users working on Django projects and does not reflect how Django should be installed when developing patches for Django itself.

The steps in this guide have been tested with Windows 7 and 8. In other versions, the steps would be similar.

Install Python

Django is a Python web framework, thus requiring Python to be installed on your machine.

To install Python on your machine go to https://python.org/download/, and download a Windows MSI installer for Python. Once downloaded, run the MSI installer and follow the on-screen instructions.

After installation, open the command prompt and check the Python version by executing python --version. If you encounter a problem, make sure you have set the PATH variable correctly. You might need to adjust your PATH environment variable to include paths to the Python executable and additional scripts. For example, if your Python is installed in C:\Python34\, the following paths need to be added to PATH:

C:\Python34\;C:\Python34\Scripts;

Install Setuptools

To install Python packages on your computer, Setuptools is needed. Download the latest version of Setuptools for your Python version and follow the installation instructions given there.

Install PIP

PIP is a package manager for Python that uses the Python Package Index to install Python packages. PIP will later be used to install Django from PyPI. If you’ve installed Python 3.4, pip is included so you may skip this section.

Open a command prompt and execute easy_install pip. This will install pip on your system. This command will work if you have successfully installed Setuptools.

Alternatively, go to http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/installing.html for installing/upgrading instructions.

Install Django

Django can be installed easily using pip.

In the command prompt, execute the following command: pip install django. This will download and install Django.

After the installation has completed, you can verify your Django installation by executing django-admin --version in the command prompt.

Changed in Django 1.7:

In Django 1.7, a .exe has been introduced, so just use django-admin in place of django-admin.py in the command prompt.

See Get your database running for information on database installation with Django.

Common pitfalls

  • If django-admin only displays the help text no matter what arguments it is given, there is probably a problem with the file association in Windows. Check if there is more than one environment variable set for running Python scripts in PATH. This usually occurs when there is more than one Python version installed.

  • If you are connecting to the internet behind a proxy, there might be problem in running the commands easy_install pip and pip install django. Set the environment variables for proxy configuration in the command prompt as follows:

    set http_proxy=http://username:password@proxyserver:proxyport
set https_proxy=https://username:password@proxyserver:proxyport
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