Windows Support

There are a couple different ways you can use Doppler on Windows. This page discusses some of them along with caveats that go along with those options.

Generic Windows Support

The Doppler CLI is written in Go and we offer a binary compiled for Windows. As such, you can install and use the Doppler CLI in a regular Command Prompt or PowerShell session in Windows. There are, however, some caveats that need to be addressed.

Caveats

Enabling Long Paths

You need to opt-out of the 260 character MAX_PATH limit in Windows. If you don't, you may run into problems where binaries you're attempting to execute via the Doppler CLI show up as not being found on your PATH along with other odd effects (e.g., Doppler not finding your project even after using doppler setup).

To opt-out of that limit, the LongPathsEnabled registry entry needs to be enabled. You can check whether this is enabled already by opening a PowerShell session and running the following command:

REG QUERY "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" /v "LongPathsEnabled"

You should see this as the output:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
    LongPathsEnabled    REG_DWORD    0x1

The value will be 0x1 for enabled and 0x0 for disabled. If the value is disabled, then open up a new PowerShell session using "Run as Administrator" and run this command:

REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" /v "LongPathsEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d "1"

You'll be prompted whether or not you want to overwrite the existing value at that path – choose "Yes". After doing this, running the original query should show that the value is now 0x1 as expected.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2)

We recommend Windows users install and take advantage of Windows Subsystem for Linux. This lets Windows users run a GNU/Linux environment directly on Windows in an unmodified state. Many modern web development tools and languages are deployed in Linux environments and were first designed to run under Linux. As such, you'll generally have a better experience working with them in that kind of environment. This system does a brilliant job of letting you essentially have the best of both worlds if you're working at a company that uses Windows primarily.

Caveats

Requires Linux Familiarity

This option does require some degree of familiarity with Linux since you're essentially opening a Linux shell. If you've not used Linux before and are uncomfortable navigating inside a Linux environment, then this may not be the best option.