Installation

You can obtain WinSCP directly from the WinSCP download page. There are two packages available, English-only and a multilanguage package. You may wish to save the installer to an easily accessed location such as the desktop or your My Documents folder.

1. If you have WinSCP running, close it. The installer will not run if it finds any instance of WinSCP running.
2. Open the installation program by double clicking on its icon.
3. If you have downloaded the “Multilanguage installation package”, you will have the opportunity to select the language for the installation. Your selection will also affect which language plugin will be selected by default for the installation. Note that while you can change your language later, the icons the installer creates will remain in the language selected for installation.
   
   
   
   Only complete translations are distributed in package. Incomplete translations must be downloaded separately.
   
4. A Welcome Screen should appear. Click Next in order to continue.
5. The License Agreement should appear. Review the license carefully, and click Next to continue.
6. You will be prompted for a Destination. Normally the default provided will be acceptable. Change the Destination folder if you like, and then click Next to proceed.
7. After selecting the destination folder, the Component Selection screen should appear. It is recommended that you choose a full installation, however, if you do not intend to use some of the optional components, or already have them installed, you may select another option here.
   
   
   
   You can select to install the following components:
   • WinSCP application (mandatory)
   • Drag&drop shell extension (may require restart)
   • Pageant (SSH authentication agent)
   • PuTTYgen (key generator)
   • Translations (multilanguage installation package only)
8. After selecting components, you will be prompted for a Start Menu Folder. You may change this from the default of “WinSCP3”, leave it as is, or click the Don’t Create a Start Menu Folder check box. The start menu folder will include icons for all installed applications and links to important webpages about WinSCP. When you are satisfied with your selection click Next to proceed.
9. After selecting a Start Menu Folder, you will be prompted for Additional Installation Tasks. You can also perform most of these tasks later, after installation (follow each task for details).
   
   
   
   You can select from following tasks:
   • Enable automatic check for application updates (recommended)
   • Create a desktop icon (for current or all users)
   • Create a Quick Launch icon (for current user only)
   • Add upload shortcut to Explorer’s ‘Send to’ context menu
   • Register to handle scp: and sftp: addresses
   • Add installation directory to search path (%PATH%)
10. After the Additional Installation Tasks screen, you will be prompted for Initial User Settings. Again, these can be easily changed later.
    
    
    
    
    • User interface style
    • Show advanced login options
11. Once you choose the interface to use, you’ll arrive at the Ready to Install screen. On this screen, you can review a list of all selected installation options. If you wish to change anything, you may press the back button until you return to the appropriate screen. If everything appears to be in order, click Install and the actual installation process will start.
12. A brief installation process will take place. If certain options such as drag&drop integration were selected, you may be prompted to restart the computer. If necessary, choose whether or not to restart and then click finish. If you choose not to restart, some functionality of WinSCP may not be available until you do so.

WinSCP uses Inno Setup as installer. It allows automation of the installation procedure using optional command-line parameters.

To automate the installation you can use following parameters:

• /SILENT - Runs the installer without any prompts (with the exception of error messages, etc.). Default selections are used for destination folder, components, etc.
• /VERYSILENT - As /SILENT, but without showing the progress window.
• /LOG=“filename” - Causes Setup to create a log file.
• /LOADINF=“filename” - Instructs Setup to load the settings from the specified file after having checked the command line. This file can be prepared using the /SAVEINF parameter.
• /SAVEINF=“filename” - Instructs Setup to save installation settings to the specified file.

For full list of parameters refer to Inno Setup help.

Learn how to create a custom distribution of WinSCP.

To upgrade WinSCP to a newer version, just download the newer version and install it over the existing installation. Your configuration will be preserved (and upgraded when necessary).

Note that the translation from an older version of WinSCP will not work with the newer one. You need to install the new translation too.

In general you may downgrade in a same way too, but some configurations may be lost. To make sure that you will be able downgrade, you should backup your configuration before the upgrade.

To uninstall WinSCP use Add/Remove Programs function of Windows (Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs). During uninstallation you will be asked if you want to remove WinSCP configuration and other data stored on your computer.