Install self-hosted TimescaleDB on Windows systems

You can host TimescaleDB yourself on your Microsoft Windows system. These instructions use a zip installer on these versions:

Microsoft Windows 10
Microsoft Windows 11
Microsoft Windows Server 2019

warning

If you have already installed PostgreSQL using a method other than the zip installer provided here, you could encounter errors following these instructions. It is safest to remove any existing PostgreSQL installations before you begin. If you want to keep your current PostgreSQL installation, do not install TimescaleDB using this method. Install from source instead.

Installing self-hosted TimescaleDB on Windows-based systems

Download and install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio from www.microsoft.com.
Download and install PostgreSQL from www.postgresql.org.
In the Windows Search tool, search for system environment variables. In the System Properties dialog, navigate to the Advanced tab, and click Environment Variables.... Locate the Path variable and click Edit.... In the Edit environment variable dialog, click New and type the path to your PostgreSQL pg_config file. It should be C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\14\bin\. Click OK to save your changes.
Download the TimescaleDB installation .zip file from our Windows releases page.
Locate the downloaded file on your local file system, and extract the files.
In the extracted TimescaleDB directory, right-click the setup.exe file and select Run as Administrator to start the installer.

When you have completed the installation, you need to configure your database so that you can use it. The easiest way to do this is to run the timescaledb-tune script, which is included with the timescaledb-tools package. For more information, see the configuration section.

Set up the TimescaleDB extension

When you have PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB installed, you can connect to it from your local system using the psql command-line utility. This is the same tool you might have used to connect to PostgreSQL before, but if you haven't installed it yet, check out our installing psql section.

Setting up the TimescaleDB extension

On your local system, at the command prompt, connect to the PostgreSQL instance as the postgres superuser:

psql -U postgres -h localhost

If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this, followed by the psql prompt:

psql (13.3, server 12.8 (Ubuntu 12.8-1.pgdg21.04+1))
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.3, cipher: TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384, bits: 256, compression: off)
Type "help" for help.
tsdb=>

At the psql prompt, create an empty database. Our database is called example:
```
CREATE database example;
```
Connect to the database you created:
```
\c tutorial
```

Add the TimescaleDB extension:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS timescaledb;

You can now connect to your database using this command:
```
psql -U postgres -h localhost -d example
```

You can check that the TimescaleDB extension is installed by using the \dx command at the psql prompt. It looks like this:

tsdb=> \dx
List of installed extensions
-[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | pg_stat_statements
Version     | 1.7
Schema      | public
Description | track execution statistics of all SQL statements executed
-[ RECORD 2 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | plpgsql
Version     | 1.0
Schema      | pg_catalog
Description | PL/pgSQL procedural language
-[ RECORD 3 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | timescaledb
Version     | 2.4.1
Schema      | public
Description | Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data
-[ RECORD 4 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
Name        | timescaledb_toolkit
Version     | 1.3.1
Schema      | public
Description | timescaledb_toolkit

tsdb=>

Where to next

Now that you have your first TimescaleDB database up and running, you can check out the TimescaleDB section in our documentation, and find out what you can do with it.

If you want to work through some tutorials to help you get up and running with TimescaleDB and time-series data, check out our tutorials section.

You can always contact us if you need help working something out, or if you want to have a chat.

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Keywords

TimescaleDB Install Self-hosted MS Windows

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