A Methodical Installation Guide for Claude Code on Windows (Q1 2026)

This is a guide for installing Claude Code on your Windows computer. Hopefully we’re on the same page. This guide is especially helpful if you are non-technical, because you likely won’t have some of the applications necessary to run Claude Code. If you have run into any PATH or BASH errors downloading Claude Code, this video is for you!

Steps for downloading Claude Code to your Windows computer:

1. Install Claude Desktop (claude.ai/download)
2. Install Git for Windows (git-scm.com/downloads/win) — use defaults
3. Install VS Code (code.visualstudio.com/download)
4. Open VS Code, open VS Code terminal (View → Terminal)
5. Run: irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
6. Add the path from the installer message to your PATH:
   • Press the Windows key, type “env”
   • Click “Edit environment variables for your account”
   • Find “Path” in the top section, click it, click Edit
   • Click New
   • Type the path from the installer (e.g., C:\Users\YourName\.local\bin)
   • Click OK, then OK again
7. Close VS Code completely and reopen it
8. Type claude in the VS Code terminal, and log in when browser opens
9. If you need to run Python scripts, install Python if you don’t have it (python.org/downloads) — check “Add to PATH”

Download our guide and give it to your AI!

You can download our troubleshooting markdown file and give it to Claude (or other chat interfaces) to walk you through this process.

We hope you enjoy the video.