Installing Bazel on Windows

1. Check your system

Recommended: 64 bit Windows 10, version 1703 (Creators Update) or newer, enable “Developer Mode”.

Also supported:

• 64 bit Windows 7 or newer

• 64 bit Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer

2. Install the prerequisites

• Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015

• MSYS2 x86_64

  You should use the default install path.

• MSYS2 packages

  Open the MSYS2 terminal, and run this command:

  pacman -S zip unzip patch diffutils git
  

3. Download Bazel

Download the Bazel binary (bazel-<version>-windows-x86_64.exe) from GitHub.

Recommended: rename this binary to bazel.exe and move it to a directory on the PATH.

Alternatively you can:

• Install from Chocolatey (see below)
• Install from Scoop (see below)
• Build from source

4. Optional: install compilers

You can skip this step. Bazel can work without these programs, but you may need them.

We recommend installing:

• Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019

  Make sure you install the C++ build tools with the Windows 10 SDK.

  You will need this to build C++ code on Windows.

  Also supported:

  • Visual Studio 2015 (or newer) with Visual C++ and Windows 10 SDK

  • Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 (or newer) and Windows 10 SDK

• Java SE Development Kit 10 (JDK) for Windows x64

  You will need this to build Java code on Windows.

  Also supported: Java 8, 9

• Python 2.7 for Windows x86-64

  You will need this to build Python code on Windows.

  Also supported: Python 3 or newer for Windows x86-64

5. Done

You have successfully installed Bazel.

Troubleshooting: see the “Appendix” > “Troubleshooting” section below.

Tutorials: see the “Tutorials” section on the left navigation panel.

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Appendix

Table of contents:

• Troubleshooting
  • Problem: Bazel does not find Bash or bash.exe
  • Problem: Bazel does not find Visual Studio or Visual C++
• Other ways to install Bazel
  • Install from Chocolatey
  • Install from Scoop
  • Build from source

Troubleshooting

Problem: Bazel does not find Bash or bash.exe

Possible reasons:

• you installed MSYS2 not under the default install path

• you installed MSYS2 i686 instead of MSYS2 x86_64

• you installed MSYS instead of MSYS2

Solution:

Ensure you installed MSYS2 x86_64.

If that doesn’t help:

1. Go to Start Menu > Settings.

2. Find the setting “Edit environment variables for your account”

3. Look at the list on the top (“User variables for <username>”), and click the “New…” button below it.

4. For “Variable name”, enter BAZEL_SH

5. Click “Browse File…”

6. Navigate to the MSYS2 directory, then to usr\bin below it.

   For example, this might be C:\msys64\usr\bin on your system.

7. Select the bash.exe or bash file and click OK

8. The “Variable value” field now has the path to bash.exe. Click OK to close the window.

9. Done.

   If you open a new cmd.exe or PowerShell terminal and run Bazel now, it will find Bash.

Problem: Bazel does not find Visual Studio or Visual C++

Possible reasons:

• you installed multiple versions of Visual Studio

• you installed and removed various versions of Visual Studio

• you installed various versions of the Windows SDK

• you installed Visual Studio not under the default install path

Solution:

1. Go to Start Menu > Settings.

2. Find the setting “Edit environment variables for your account”

3. Look at the list on the top (“User variables for <username>”), and click the “New…” button below it.

4. For “Variable name”, enter BAZEL_VC

5. Click “Browse Directory…”

6. Navigate to the VC directory of Visual Studio.

   For example, this might be C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\VC on your system.

7. Select the VC folder and click OK

8. The “Variable value” field now has the path to VC. Click OK to close the window.

9. Done.

   If you open a new cmd.exe or PowerShell terminal and run Bazel now, it will find Visual C++.

Other ways to install Bazel

Install using Chocolatey

1. Install the Chocolatey package manager

2. Install the Bazel package:

   choco install bazel
   

   This command will install the latest available version of Bazel and its dependencies, such as the MSYS2 shell. This will not install Visual C++ though.

See Chocolatey installation and package maintenance guide for more information about the Chocolatey package.

Install using Scoop

1. Install the Scoop package manager using the following PowerShell command:

   iex (new-object net.webclient).downloadstring('https://get.scoop.sh')
   

2. Install the Bazel package:

   scoop install bazel
   

See Scoop installation and package maintenance guide for more information about the Scoop package.