Python 2.7.9+ and 3.4+
Good news! Python 3.4 (released March 2014) and Python 2.7.9 (released December 2014) ship with Pip. This is the best feature of any Python release. It makes the community's wealth of libraries accessible to everyone. Newbies are no longer excluded from using community libraries by the prohibitive difficulty of setup. In shipping with a package manager, Python joins Ruby, Node.js, Haskell, Perl, Go—almost every other contemporary language with a majority open-source community. Thank you, Python.
If you do find that pip is not available when using Python 3.4+ or Python 2.7.9+, simply execute e.g.:
py -3 -m ensurepip
Of course, that doesn't mean Python packaging is problem solved. The experience remains frustrating. I discuss this in the Stack Overflow question Does Python have a package/module management system?.
And, alas for everyone using Python 2.7.8 or earlier (a sizable portion of the community). There's no plan to ship Pip to you. Manual instructions follow.
Python 2 ≤ 2.7.8 and Python 3 ≤ 3.3
Flying in the face of its 'batteries included' motto, Python ships without a package manager. To make matters worse, Pip was—until recently—ironically difficult to install.
Official instructions
Per https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/#do-i-need-to-install-pip:
Download get-pip.py
, being careful to save it as a .py
file rather than .txt
. Then, run it from the command prompt:
python get-pip.py
You possibly need an administrator command prompt to do this. Follow Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator (Microsoft TechNet).
This installs the pip package, which (in Windows) contains ...\Scripts\pip.exe that path must be in PATH environment variable to use pip from the command line (see the second part of 'Alternative Instructions' for adding it to your PATH,
Alternative instructions
The official documentation tells users to install Pip and each of its dependencies from source. That's tedious for the experienced and prohibitively difficult for newbies.
For our sake, Christoph Gohlke prepares Windows installers (.msi
) for popular Python packages. He builds installers for all Python versions, both 32 and 64 bit. You need to:
- Install setuptools
- Install pip
For me, this installed Pip at C:\Python27\Scripts\pip.exe
. Find pip.exe
on your computer, then add its folder (for example, C:\Python27\Scripts
) to your path (Start / Edit environment variables). Now you should be able to run pip
from the command line. Try installing a package:
pip install httpie
There you go (hopefully)! Solutions for common problems are given below:
Proxy problems
If you work in an office, you might be behind an HTTP proxy. If so, set the environment variables http_proxy
and https_proxy
. Most Python applications (and other free software) respect these. Example syntax:
http://proxy_url:port
http://username:password@proxy_url:port
If you're really unlucky, your proxy might be a Microsoft NTLM proxy. Free software can't cope. The only solution is to install a free software friendly proxy that forwards to the nasty proxy. http://cntlm.sourceforge.net/
Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
Python modules can be partly written in C or C++. Pip tries to compile from source. If you don't have a C/C++ compiler installed and configured, you'll see this cryptic error message.
Error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
You can fix that by installing a C++ compiler such as MinGW or Visual C++. Microsoft actually ships one specifically for use with Python. Or try Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7.
Often though it's easier to check Christoph's site for your package.
See the docs for the update
command:
npm update [-g] [<pkg>...]
This command will update all the packages listed to the latest version (specified by the tag config), respecting semver.
Additionally, see the documentation on Node.js and NPM installation and Upgrading NPM.
The following original answer is from the old FAQ that no longer exists, but should work for Linux and Mac:
How do I update npm?
npm install -g npm
Please note that this command will remove your current version of npm. Make sure to use sudo npm install -g npm
if on a Mac.
You can also update all outdated local packages by doing npm update
without any arguments, or global packages by doing npm update -g
.
Occasionally, the version of npm will progress such that the current version cannot be properly installed with the version that you have installed already. (Consider, if there is ever a bug in the update command.) In those cases, you can do this:
curl https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sh
To update Node.js itself, I recommend you use nvm, the Node Version Manager.
Best Answer
This is the new best way to upgrade npm on Windows.
Run PowerShell as Administrator
Note: Do not run
npm i -g npm
. Instead usenpm-windows-upgrade
to update npm going forward. Also if you run the NodeJS installer, it will replace the node version.npm-windows-upgrade -p -v latest
.