How to Install and Run the Nginx Server on Windows

The Nginx server has some performance limitations on a Windows system, but it allows you to connect to the employee or customer portal from the comfort of your home. In this post, we will see how you can install and run the Nginx Server on your Windows computer.

How do I install and run Nginx server on Windows?

Nginx has released a version for Windows as well. You can pretty easily download it from their official website and once you have it, you can run the executable that you can attain after extracting the downloaded ZIP file. To know the process in detail, read the guide mentioned hereinafter.

Read: How to access FTP Server using Notepad++

Install and Run the Nginx Server on Windows

Nginx is an open-source and free-to-use web server. In reality, it is not your average web server, one can use it as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy, and HTTP cache Nginx web server was primarily used in Linux and BSD systems, which is why, installing it on Windows requires a little effort and we are here to make it easy for you. We have decided the whole procedure into the following three steps.

Download Nginx Server from the web
Install Nginx Server on your system
Run the Nginx server

Now, let us discuss each step in detail.

1] Download Nginx Server from the web

Since we don’t already have Nginx Server, the very first thing you need to do is download it. To do the same, go to nginx.org, click on download, and then download the stable version. It is quite unfortunate that there is no installer hosted on the website as that would have made the whole process simple. Maybe as their demand increase, they will make this process easier, meanwhile, download the ZIP file.

2] Install Nginx Server on your system

Now that we have Nginx Server downloaded from the web, it’s time to install the same. However, before that, you must extract the ZIP folder and place the extracted folder in your computer’s C drive. Once done, follow the steps given below to install Nginx Server.

Open File Explorer and go to the location where you have extracted the folder.
Now, double-click on the nginx.exe file to open it.
You might get a Windows SmartScreen warning, click on More info > Run anyway.
Now, when the Windows Security Alert prompt appears, click on Allow access.

Now, the Nginx server is running on your computer. To check that, open Task Manager, and in the Process tab, you will see Nginx.exe. In case, you don’t get any prompt or the process doesn’t start, go to nginx > config and open nginx.config with Notepad. Now, look for Local Host and change Listen to 8070 as your default port, which is 80 is being used. You can also free up the default port by running the following command in the elevated mode of Command Prompt.

netsh http add iplisten ipaddress=::

Finally, run the file, it will run.

Also Read: Find out & reset WinHTTP Proxy Server Settings in Windows 11/10

3] Run the Nginx server

Now that we have downloaded and installed the required server, it’s time to run it. Even though there are various methods to do the same, to no make things more complicated, we will give you two simple ones. Following are the ways by which you can run the Nginx server on your system.

Using a browser: The simplest method to run the Nginx server is by typing Localhost in the address bar of your default browser. However, on some occasions, this launches the Internet Information Services screen. So, if this doesn’t work for you, do not get disheartened, go to the next one.
Using PowerShell: Right-click on the nginx.exe file and note the Location. Now, open PowerShell as an admin and type cd <copied-location>. This command will change your directory, then you can execute start nginx.

Since we can not leave the server running, to stop it, open Task Manager, look for the nginx.exe file, right-click on it, and select End Task. Alternatively, execute nginx -s stop or nginx -s quite in PowerShell (as admin) to shut it down.

So that’s how you can download, install and run the Nginx server on a Windows computer.

Read: How to install Apache on Windows?

Can I run Nginx on Windows?

After installing Nginx on your computer, run it either using the default browser or PowerShell. Either way, you can access the server, and start and stop the service. You can check the aforementioned sections to know more about them.