# 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:

1. Make sure you have Powershell installed. See PowerShell installation.

2. Install the latest version of Python 3. Download the .exe file at the python website.

3. Open the installer by double-clicking it. Select the Add Python to PATH check-box, then click Install Now.

4. Start PowerShell and enter the following command to verify python installation:

       python --version

5. Use `pip` to install `virtualenv`:

       pip install --user virtualenv

6. 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.

7. Use pip to install Tahoe-LAFS in the virtualenv instance:

       venv\Scripts\pip install tahoe-lafs

6. 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.