---
layout: docs
title: Jekyll on Windows
permalink: /docs/windows/
---

While Windows is not an officially-supported platform, it can be used to run
Jekyll with the proper tweaks. This page aims to collect some of the general
knowledge and lessons that have been unearthed by Windows users.

## Installation

A quick way to install Jekyll is to follow the [installation instructions by David Burela](https://davidburela.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/easily-install-jekyll-on-windows-with-3-command-prompt-entries-and-chocolatey/):

 1. Install a package manager for Windows called [Chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/install)
 2. Install Ruby via Chocolatey: `choco install ruby -y`
 3. Reopen a command prompt and install Jekyll: `gem install jekyll`

For a more conventional way of installing Jekyll you can follow the [installation instruction by Julian Thilo][windows-installation]. The instructions were written for Ruby 2.0.0, but should work for later
versions [prior to 2.2][hitimes-issue].

## Encoding

If you use UTF-8 encoding, make sure that no `BOM` header
characters exist in your files or very, very bad things will happen to
Jekyll. This is especially relevant if you're running Jekyll on Windows.

Additionally, you might need to change the code page of the console window to UTF-8
in case you get a "Liquid Exception: Incompatible character encoding" error during
the site generation process. It can be done with the following command:

```sh
$ chcp 65001
```

[windows-installation]: http://jekyll-windows.juthilo.com/
[hitimes-issue]: https://github.com/copiousfreetime/hitimes/issues/40

## Auto-regeneration

As of v1.3.0, Jekyll uses the `listen` gem to watch for changes when the
`--watch` switch is specified during a build or serve. While `listen` has
built-in support for UNIX systems, it requires an extra gem for compatibility
with Windows. Add the following to the Gemfile for your site:

```ruby
gem 'wdm', '~> 0.1.0' if Gem.win_platform?
```

### How to install github-pages

This section is part of an article written by [Jens Willmer][jwillmerPost]. To follow the instructions you need to have [Chocolatey][] installed on your system. If you already have a version of Ruby installed you need to uninstall it before you can continue.

#### Install Ruby and Ruby development kit

Open a command prompt and execute the following commands:

 * `choco install ruby -version 2.2.4`
 * `choco install ruby2.devkit` - _needed for compilation of json gem_

#### Configure Ruby development kit

The development kit did not set the environment path for Ruby so we need to do it.

 * Open command prompt in `C:\tools\DevKit2`
 * Execute `ruby dk.rb init` to create a file called `config.yml`
 * Edit the `config.yml` file and include the path to Ruby `- C:/tools/ruby22`
 * Execute the following command to set the path: `ruby dk.rb install`

#### Nokogiri gem installation

This gem is also needed in the github-pages and to get it running on Windows x64 we have to install a few things.


**Note:** In the current [pre release][nokogiriFails] it works out of the box with Windows x64 but this version is not referenced in the github-pages.


`choco install libxml2 -Source "https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/"`{:.language-ruby}

`choco install libxslt -Source "https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/"`{:.language-ruby}

`choco install libiconv -Source "https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/"`{:.language-ruby}

```ruby
 gem install nokogiri --^
   --with-xml2-include=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libxml2.2.7.8.7\build\native\include^
   --with-xml2-lib=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libxml2.redist.2.7.8.7\build\native\bin\v110\x64\Release\dynamic\cdecl^
   --with-iconv-include=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libiconv.1.14.0.11\build\native\include^
   --with-iconv-lib=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libiconv.redist.1.14.0.11\build\native\bin\v110\x64\Release\dynamic\cdecl^
   --with-xslt-include=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libxslt.1.1.28.0\build\native\include^
   --with-xslt-lib=C:\Chocolatey\lib\libxslt.redist.1.1.28.0\build\native\bin\v110\x64\Release\dynamic
```

#### Install github-pages

 * Open command prompt and install [Bundler][]: `gem install bundler`
 * Create a file called `Gemfile` without any extension in your root directory of your blog
 * Copy & paste the two lines into the file:


```ruby
source 'http://rubygems.org'
gem 'github-pages'
```

 * **Note:** We use an unsecure connection because SSL throws exceptions in the version of Ruby
 * Open a command prompt, target your local blog repository root, and install github-pages: `bundle install`


After this process you should have github-pages installed on your system and you can host your blog again with `jekyll s`. \\
There will be a warning on startup that you should include `gem 'wdm', '>= 0.1.0' if Gem.win_platform?` to your `Gemfile` but I could not get `jekyll s` working if I include that line so for the moment I ignore that warning.

In the future the installation process of the github-pages should be as simple as the setup of the blog. But as long as the new version of the Nokogiri ([v1.6.8][nokogiriReleases]) is not stable and referenced, it is work to get it up and running on Windows.

[jwillmerPost]: http://jwillmer.de/blog/tutorial/how-to-install-jekyll-and-pages-gem-on-windows-10-x46 "Installation instructions by Jens Willmer"
[Chocolatey]: https://chocolatey.org/install "Package manager for Windows"
[Bundler]: http://bundler.io/ "Ruby Dependencie Manager"
[nokogiriReleases]: https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri/releases "Nokogiri Releases"
[nokogiriFails]: https://github.com/sparklemotion/nokogiri/issues/1456#issuecomment-206481794 "Nokogiri fails to install on Ruby 2.3 for Windows"