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+# Installation instructions for Windows
+
+There are two packages for Windows:
+
+* if you already have a Lua installation, the <b>single binary</b> package
+  which you can use: get the [latest windows-32.zip file
+  here](http://luarocks.github.io/luarocks/releases), unpack it and you'll
+  have a <tt>luarocks.exe</tt> ready to use. Make sure the executable is
+  available from your executable PATH so you can run <tt>luarocks</tt> from
+  the command line the same way you run <tt>lua</tt>.
+
+* we also provide an all-in-one package which includes Lua 5.1 and LuaRocks in
+  source format; get the [latest win32.zip file
+  here](http://luarocks.github.io/luarocks/releases). The instructions below
+  are about this package.
+
+This page refers to the second method. The all-in-one package includes
+everything you need to launch LuaRocks, including helper binaries and a
+Lua interpreter. (You can use your own Lua interpreter if you already have
+one installed, see below.)
+
+<b>Important:</b> To compile many Lua packages, you will also need a C compiler.
+The installer batch file included in the all-in-one package attempts to detect
+if you have Microsoft Visual Studio or [Mingw](https://mingw.org) (Minimalistic GNU for Windows, which includes GCC).
+
+The installer script, <tt>INSTALL.BAT</tt>, provides a number of options for
+customizing your installation. Run <tt>INSTALL /?</tt> for details.
+
+Run `INSTALL.BAT` it from a Command Prompt window. If you will be using it
+with Microsoft Visual Studio, it is recommended to use LuaRocks with the
+Visual Studio Command Prompt, where all environment variables for using the
+MSVC compiler, `cl`, are set.
+
+* If you using <a href="https://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a> then go through [installation instructions for Unix](installation_instructions_for_unix.md).
+
+# The default settings 
+
+The default settings are suitable for installing LuaRocks globally
+in your system while allowing both system-wide and per-user sets of rocks.
+Non-priviledged accounts will be able to install their own rocks in their
+%APPDATA% directory, and administrator accounts can install rocks that
+will be available for everyone.
+
+# Making a system-wide repository 
+
+All paths described above can be overridden with flags in the INSTALL.BAT script,
+or entries in the configuration file.
+
+{|
+| /P _dir_       || Where to install. Default is %PROGRAMFILES%\LuaRocks\_version_. Because LuaRocks contains 32bit executables, this will be in the c:\program files (x86)\ path on 64bit systems.
+|}
+
+Configuring the destinations:
+
+{| cellpadding=5px
+| /TREE _dir_    || Root of the local tree of installed rocks. Default is %PROGRAMFILES%\LuaRocks\systree. On 64bit systems this default depends on the Lua interpreter used. A 64bit interpreter will have the c:\program files\ path, where a 32bit interpreter on a 64bit system will follow the c:\program files (x86)\ path.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /SCRIPTS _dir_ || Where to install commandline scripts installed by rocks. Default is {TREE}/bin.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /CONFIG _dir_  || Location where the config file should be installed. Default is to follow /P option
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /SELFCONTAINED   || Creates a self contained installation in a single directory given by /P. Sets the /TREE and /CONFIG options to the same location as /P. And does not load registry info with option /NOREG. The only option NOT self contained is the user rock tree, so don't use that if you create a self contained installation.
+|}
+
+Configuring the Lua interpreter:
+
+{| cellpadding=5px
+| /LV _version_  || Lua version to use; either 5.1, 5.2 or 5.3. Default is auto-detected.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /LUA _dir_     || Location where Lua is installed - e.g. c:\lua\5.1\. If not provided, the installer will search the system path and some default locations for a valid Lua installation. This is the base directory, the installer will look for subdirectories bin, lib, include. Alternatively these can be specified explicitly using the /INC, /LIB, and /BIN options.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /INC _dir_     || Location of Lua includes - e.g. c:\lua\5.1\include. If provided overrides sub directory found using /LUA.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /LIB _dir_     || Location of Lua libraries (.dll/.lib) - e.g. c:\lua\5.1\lib. If provided overrides sub directory found using /LUA.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /BIN _dir_     || Location of Lua executables - e.g. c:\lua\5.1\bin. If provided overrides sub directory found using /LUA.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /L             || Install LuaRocks' own copy of Lua even if detected, this will always be a 5.1 installation. (/LUA, /INC, /LIB, /BIN cannot be used with /L)
+within an application.
+|}
+
+Compiler configuration:
+
+{| cellpadding=5px
+| /MW             || Use mingw as build system instead of MSVC.
+|}
+
+Other options:
+
+{| cellpadding=5px
+| /FORCECONFIG   || Use a single config location. Do not use the LUAROCKS_CONFIG variable or the user's home directory. Useful to avoid conflicts when LuaRocks is embedded 
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /F             || Force. Remove installation directory if it already exists.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /NOREG         || Do not load registry info to register '.rockspec' extension with LuaRocks commands (right-click).
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /NOADMIN       || The installer requires admin priviledges. If not available it will elevate a new process. Use this switch to prevent elevation, but make sure the destination paths are all accessible for the current user.
+|-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+| /Q             || Do not prompt for confirmation of settings
+|}
+
+After installation, a default config file called config.lua will be installed at the directory defined by /CONFIG. For further configuration of LuaRocks paths, see the [Config file format](config_file_format.md). For more information on the structure of rocks trees see [rocks repositories](rocks_repositories.md).
+
+# Making a self-contained installation 
+
+Another option is to install LuaRocks in a self-contained manner. This
+is an interesting alternative when shipping an application which uses
+third-party modules. Bundling them as rocks reduces maintenance overhead
+and allows the user to perform updates.
+
+In this scenario, it is not desired to have the user's (or the system's)
+configuration affect the self-contained LuaRocks install, in case the 
+user or the system also have different LuaRocks installations. For this
+reason, the INSTALL.BAT script allows to hardcode the location of a
+configuration file. For example, the compilation process of a package
+bundling LuaRocks could do something like this:
+
+```
+SET PREFIX=C:\mypackage
+ INSTALL /P %PREFIX% /CONFIG %PREFIX%\luarocks
+```
+
+The copy of LuaRocks installed in C:\mypackage will ignore
+customization schemes such as the %LUAROCKS_CONFIG% environment variable
+and will only use C:\mypackage\luarocks\config.lua.
+
+An interesting option in those cases is for the application to provide
+in its configuration file an URL for their own rocks repository, so they
+can have control over updates to be performed. Continuing the previous
+example, luarocks\config.lua could contain something like this:
+
+```
+repositories = {
+    "http://www.example.com/rocks/"
+ }
+```
+
+# Picking the Lua interpreter 
+
+LuaRocks can use its own Lua interpreter provided by the Lua for WIndows project,
+and will do so by default if it fails to find your Lua installation
+automatically. If you want to use your own interpreter, which is not on the system path, 
+you can pass its path using the /LUA variable (or /BIN, /LIB and /INC explicitly, if 
+you have a custom directory structure).
+
+When looking for an interpreter, it will also try to figure out the name of 
+the Lua binary (lua.exe, lua5.1.exe). This is set in the `lua_interpreter`
+variable in the configuration file. If you want to use an alternative name to the
+interpreter, you can set that variable in your configuration file directly.
+
+An important element is the runtime libraries used by the interpreter, as LuaRocks must
+compile additional rocks installed with the same runtime as the interpreter. To do this
+LuaRocks will analyse the executable found.
+
+# Next steps 
+
+Once LuaRocks is installed, learn more about [using LuaRocks](using_luarocks.md).
+
+