Install QGIS on Windows — step-by-step OSGeo4W guide

Pre-install checklist

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
• At least 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended)
• At least 2 GB free disk space (10 GB recommended for full install)
• Administrator rights on your PC
• Active internet connection during install (OSGeo4W downloads packages)

Install QGIS with OSGeo4W — step by step

• 1

  Download osgeo4w-setup.exe

  Get the installer from the download page or directly from download.osgeo.org. The file is about 1 MB — it downloads the actual packages during setup.

• 2

  Run as Administrator

  Right-click osgeo4w-setup.exe → Run as administrator. Accept the UAC prompt. The OSGeo4W setup wizard opens.

• 3

  Choose Express Desktop Install

  Select Express Desktop Install for the simplest path. This installs QGIS LTR with all required dependencies automatically.

• 4

  Choose your QGIS version

  The package list appears. Find and check:

  • qgis-ltr — stable long-term release (recommended)
  • qgis — latest release (newest features)

  Accept all automatically selected dependencies.

• 5

  Select a mirror and download

  Choose a download mirror close to your location. The installer downloads packages — this can take 5–20 minutes depending on your connection speed and what is already cached.

• 6

  Launch QGIS

  After install, find QGIS Desktop 3.40.5 in the Start menu. First launch initialises Python and GDAL — this takes 15–30 seconds. Subsequent launches are faster.

Check QGIS installed correctly

Install questions