Windows Operating System

• ROS for Windows requires 64-bit Windows 10 Desktop or Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.
• Please ensure that you have Powershell installed and in the system path.

• Exclude c:\opt (and later your workspace folder) from real-time virus Scanners, as they can interfere with install and development.

Reserve space for the installation

• Clean and back up any existing data under c:\opt before proceeding.

• c:\opt is the required install location. Relocation is not currently enabled.

• Please ensure you have 10 GB of free space on the C:\ drive for the installation and development.

Install Visual Studio 2019

Building a ROS project for Windows requires Visual Studio 2019 and the Microsoft Windows 10 SDK.

• Download Visual Studio 2019

  • Visual Studio 2019 is required to maintain toolchain compatibility with published binaries.
  • Vcpkg is used for managing dependent libraries. It requires that the English language pack be installed.
  • Include "Desktop development with C++" workload.
  • In the Individual Components, select "Windows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0)".

Install Windows Package Manager

Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows. It is used to make it easy to install tools and libraries needed for building and running ROS projects. The following instructions redirect the chocolatey install location into the c:\opt, so that you can clean or move a ROS environment from that one location.

• In the Start Menu, find the "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019" item.
• Right Click, select More then "Run as Administrator"
• Copy the following command line:

  • @"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"

  • Paste it into the command window.
  • Approve any prompts
  • Once it has completed, close the command prompt to complete the install.
• Install Git:
  • Reopen the Visual Studio Command Window as described above.
  • Please install Git using the command here, even if you have it installed as an application.

    choco upgrade git -y

  • After Git installed, ensure Git is now available in the Visual Studio command window.

    git --version

  • Close and Reopen the Visual Studio Command Window as described above.

Binary Package Installation

To set up ROS for Windows follow these recommended steps:

ROS Last Known Good (LKG) Build Installation

To get things started, install the recommended desktop_full metapackage. A Metapackage is a collection of other packages. The Desktop-Full metapackage refers to a number of other packages needed to build, run, debug and visualize a robot.

Open the Visual Studio Command Prompt as Administrator as described above.

mkdir c:\opt\chocolatey
set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey
choco source add -n=ros-win -s="https://aka.ms/ros/public" --priority=1
choco upgrade ros-noetic-desktop_full -y --execution-timeout=0

ROS 2 Build Installation

To get started with ROS 2, one can also follow the similar steps to install ROS 2 from the same Chocolatey feed.

For example, if you want to install ROS2 Foxy build, open the ROS Command Prompt created above and approve the administrative elevation if not already opened.

mkdir c:\opt\chocolatey
set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey
choco source add -n=ros-win -s="https://aka.ms/ros/public" --priority=1
choco upgrade ros-foxy-desktop -y --execution-timeout=0

Create a ROS Command Window shortcut

In order to use ROS on Windows, the ROS setup script needs to be called in each command Window. In order to not forget in the future, it is helpful to have a ROS shortcut which does this automatically.

• Create an Administrative command line shortcut for Visual Studio:

• Right click in a Windows Explorer folder, select New > Shortcut

• In the shortcut path, copy the highlighted command line from the following options, depending on the Visual Studio install above:
  • If you are using Community:

    C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat" -arch=amd64 -host_arch=amd64&& set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey&& c:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\setup.bat

  • If you are using Professional:

    C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat" -arch=amd64 -host_arch=amd64&& set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey&& c:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\setup.bat

  • If you are using Enterprise:

    C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat" -arch=amd64 -host_arch=amd64&& set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey&& c:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\setup.bat

  • Name the shortcut "ROS"
  • Set that shortcut as Administrator
    • Right Click on the shortcut and choose "Properties".
    • Select the Shortcut Tab if not already selected.
    • Press the Advanced button
    • Check the button "Run as Administrator".
    • Press OK on the Advanced properties dialog.
    • Press OK on the "ROS Properties" shortcut dialog.

Using the new Windows Terminal

Microsoft released a new open source terminal for Windows, which includes many improvements over the built in command line, including tabs and appearance customization. You can install it from the Microsoft Store.

To set up the terminal for ROS:

• Find the Windows Terminal from the start menu, right click and select 'Run as Administrator'
• Select settings from the drop down arrow next to the Add Tab (+) Button.
• In the list array in the "profiles" object, add a new block for ROS.

    "profiles" :
    {
        list: 
        [
            ...
            {
                "commandline" : "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /k \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2019\\Community\\Common7\\Tools\\VsDevCmd.bat\" -arch=amd64 -host_arch=amd64 && set ChocolateyInstall=c:\\opt\\chocolatey&& c:\\opt\\ros\\noetic\\x64\\setup.bat",
                "guid" : "{xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx}",
                "icon" : "ms-appx:///ProfileIcons/{0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101}.png",
                "name" : "ROS Noetic",
                "startingDirectory" : "c:\\ws"
        },

• from a Visual Studio command window, use the command uuidgen to generate a globally unique identifier (aka universally unique identifier).

• copy the guid (select the text, then right click to copy)
• Replace xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with the text copied above.
• (Optionally) Set this guid as the "defaultProfile"

        "alwaysShowTabs" : true,
        "copyOnSelect" : false,
        "defaultProfile" : "{xxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx}",
        ....

Stay Up to Date

If you want to update your ROS install, use Chocolatey's upgrade feature.

Open the ROS Command Prompt created above and approve the administrative elevation if not already opened.

Run the following command:

set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey
choco upgrade all -y --execution-timeout=0

It is recommended to add --execution-timeout=0 to accommodate a chocolatey install failure due to slow network.

Uninstall

1. Before the uninstallation, make sure no ROS system or program is running on your system.
2. In a command prompt, run the following command:

  rmdir /s /q c:\opt

Feedback

In case you run into any upgrade/install/uninstall issues, you are encouraged to ask a question on answers.ros.org and tag windows.