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

The minimum supported PostgreSQL versions are:

  • PostgreSQL 12.8
  • PostgreSQL 13.5
  • PostgreSQL 14.0
  • PostgreSQL 15.0
warning

If you have already installed PostgreSQL using another method, 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

  1. Download and install the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio from www.microsoft.com.
  2. Download and install PostgreSQL from www.postgresql.org.
  3. 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.
  4. Download the TimescaleDB installation .zip file from our Windows releases.
  5. Locate the downloaded file on your local file system, and extract the files.
  6. 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.

Install psql on Windows

The psql tool is installed by default on Windows systems when you install PostgreSQL, and this is the most effective way to install the tool. These instructions use the interactive installer provided by PostgreSQL and EnterpriseDB.

Installing psql on Windows

  1. Download and run the PostgreSQL installer from www.enterprisedb.com.
  2. In the Select Components dialog, check Command Line Tools, along with any other components you want to install, and click Next.
  3. Complete the installation wizard to install the package.

Setting up the TimescaleDB extension

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

    1. psql -U postgres -h localhost

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

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

  2. At the psql prompt, create an empty database. Our database is called example:

    1. CREATE database example;

  3. Connect to the database you created:

    1. \c example

  4. Add the TimescaleDB extension:

    1. CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS timescaledb;

  5. You can now connect to your database using this command:

    1. 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:

  2. tsdb=> \dx
  4. List of installed extensions
  6. -[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
  8. Name        | pg_stat_statements
  10. Version     | 1.7
  12. Schema      | public
  14. Description | track execution statistics of all SQL statements executed
  16. -[ RECORD 2 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
  18. Name        | plpgsql
  20. Version     | 1.0
  22. Schema      | pg_catalog
  24. Description | PL/pgSQL procedural language
  26. -[ RECORD 3 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
  28. Name        | timescaledb
  30. Version     | 2.4.1
  32. Schema      | public
  34. Description | Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data
  36. -[ RECORD 4 ]------------------------------------------------------------------
  38. Name        | timescaledb_toolkit
  40. Version     | 1.3.1
  42. Schema      | public
  44. Description | timescaledb_toolkit
  46. tsdb=>

Windows releases

Here are the latest TimescaleDB releases for PostgreSQL 12, 13, 14, and 15. To see information on releases, check out the GitHub releases page. Also see the release notes.

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.