# Windows Installation

DO NOT INSTALL INTO ANY WINDOWS CONTROLLED FOLDER (Program Files, System32, etc).

DO NOT RUN START.BAT WITH ADMIN PERMISSIONS

INSTALLATION ON WINDOWS 7 IS IMPOSSIBLE AS IT CAN NOT RUN NODEJS 18.16

# Installing via Git

Install NodeJS (latest LTS version is recommended)
Install Git for Windows
Open Windows Explorer (Win+E)
Browse to or Create a folder that is not controlled or monitored by Windows. (ex: C:\MySpecialFolder)
Open a Command Prompt inside that folder by clicking in the 'Address Bar' at the top, typing cmd, and pressing Enter.
Once the black box (Command Prompt) pops up, type ONE of the following into it and press Enter:

for Release Branch: git clone https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern -b release
for Staging Branch: git clone https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern -b staging
1. Once everything is cloned, double-click Start.bat to make NodeJS install its requirements.
2. The server will then start, and SillyTavern will pop up in your browser.

Install Git for Windows
Open Windows Explorer (Win+E) and make or choose a folder where you wanna install the launcher to
Open a Command Prompt inside that folder by clicking in the 'Address Bar' at the top, typing cmd, and pressing Enter.
When you see a black box, insert the following command: git clone https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern-Launcher.git
Double-click on installer.bat and choose what you wanna install
After installation double-click on launcher.bat

(This allows git usage only in GitHub Desktop, if you want to use git on the command line too, you also need to install Git for Windows)

Install NodeJS (latest LTS version is recommended)
Install GitHub Desktop
After installing GitHub Desktop, click on Clone a repository from the internet.... (Note: You do NOT need to create a GitHub account for this step)

On the menu, click the URL tab, enter this URL https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern, and click Clone. You can change the Local path to change where SillyTavern is going to be downloaded.

To open SillyTavern, use Windows Explorer to browse into the folder where you cloned the repository. By default, the repository will be cloned here: C:\Users\[Your Windows Username]\Documents\GitHub\SillyTavern
Double-click on the start.bat file. (Note: the .bat part of the file name might be hidden by your OS, in that case, it will look like a file called "Start". This is what you double-click to run SillyTavern)

After double-clicking, a large black command console window should open and SillyTavern will begin to install what it needs to operate.
After the installation process, if everything is working, the command console window should look like this and a SillyTavern tab should be open in your browser: