Today's post will guide you through the detailed steps to install Go on Windows. Go is an open-source and statically typed programming language developed in 2007 by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson at Google but launched in 2009. It is also known as the Golang and it supports the procedural programming language. It’s really simple to install Golang on Windows, please follow the below steps
Method-1: Install GoLang from official archive
Step-1: Installing git [Optional]
We need version control software to manage go projects and download libraries. In this tutorial, we will use Git. Go to the download page and choose the latest (2.38.1) 64-bit version of Git for Windows. This is the most recently maintained build. Run the .exe file and follow the guide to install Git on Windows:
Go should be checked to see if it is already installed on your system before we start the installation process. Go to the Command line to see if Golang is already installed on your device.
go version
If Golang is already installed, a message including all the details of the version that are available will be generated; otherwise, if Golang is not installed, an error stating Bad command or file name will be generated.
Step-2: Downloading Go
The first step is to download Golang. For that, all versions of Go for Windows are available on golang.org. Choose your version and click download the msi file (for example https://go.dev/dl/go1.19.3.windows-amd64.msi)
Step-3: Install go from .msi file
After launching the installer (.msi file) the installer will begin:
Accept the Go license agreement and click Next:
There is already a value in the destination Go installation. Simply click Change if you want to make changes. But leaving it at its default setting is recommended:
To start the installation, click Install. Windows will request administrative permission to install Go, just accept Yes:
Click Finish to complete the setup after it has finished installing:
Step-4: Check GoLang version installed
To check the GoLang version that is installed, go to cmd and use the command below:
go version
The system will prompt the installed go version:
Step-5: Setup GOPATH
The Go compiler needs a way to know how to find our source files (packages) so that the compiler can build and install them. The compiler utilizes two environmental variables for this job. $GOROOT and $GOPATH tell the Go compiler where to search for the locations of the Go packages listed by the import statement.
The GOPATH
 environment variable lists places to look for Go code. On Unix, the value is a colon-separated string. On Windows, the value is a semicolon-separated string.Â
GOPATH
 must be set to get, build and install packages outside the standard Go tree.
To verify setting up these environment, search Environment and click Edit system Environment variables
Click on Environment Variables:
You can set GOPATH to any folder you prefer. To change GOPATH just click Edit and then either write the path or browse the folder.
Method-2: Install Golang using Chocolatey
Chocolatey is a package management for Windows. Chocolatey has the largest online registry of Windows packages. Chocolatey packages encapsulate everything required to manage a particular piece of software into one deployment artifact by wrapping installers, executables, zips, and/or scripts into a compiled package file.
Requirements
- Windows 7+ / Windows Server 2003+
- PowerShell v2+ (minimum is v3 for install from this website due to TLS 1.2 requirement)
- .NET Framework 4+ (the installation will attempt to install .NET 4.0 if you do not have it installed)(minimum is 4.5 for install from this website due to TLS 1.2 requirement)
Install Chocolatey with powershell
Ensure that you are using an administrative shell - you can also install as a non-admin, check out Non-Administrative Installation.
With PowerShell, you must ensure Get-ExecutionPolicy is not Restricted. We suggest using Bypass
 to bypass the policy to get things installed or AllSigned
 for quite a bit more security.
Run Get-ExecutionPolicy
. If it returns Restricted
, then run Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned
 or Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process
.
Now run the following command:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
Paste the copied text into your shell and press Enter and wait a few seconds for the command to complete.
If you don't see any errors, you are ready to use Chocolatey! Type choco
 or choco -?
to check if choco already installed.
Install Golang using chocolatey
To install Go Programming Language, run the following command from the command line or from PowerShell:
choco install golang
Summary
Go on Windows 10 is comparatively easy to install. Downloads for all platforms that are supported are available from the Golang website. Simply download the file, double click it, and finish the installation on Windows 10. You can also use Chocolatey - package management for Windows to install Go.
References
https://go.dev/doc/install
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer