Install LISA on Windows

We will guide you through the installation of LISA on Windows.

Note

On Windows, after you finished an installation, or make an environment variable change, you might need to restart your shell before moving to next step to make sure your changes take effect.

Note

Please run your command prompt or shell with elevated privilege (such as 'Run as Administrator' on Windows) when you see access denied message when installing tools.

Install Python on Windows

LISA has been tested to work with Python 3.8 64-bit and above. The latest version of Python 3 is recommended. If you find that LISA is not compatible with higher version Python, please file an issue.

The full installer allows greater customization and doesn’t have the security restriction of the Microsoft Store packages, so may be preferred in some situations.

Navigate to Python releases for Windows. Download and install Windows installer (64-bit) for Python 3.8 64-bit or above.

More information on the full installer, including installation without a GUI, can be found here.

Warning

Please make sure the Python directory and its Scripts directory are added to your PATH environment variable. To check, type in console

echo $env:path

and if you see such two paths in the output, you are good. Otherwise please manually add these two paths.

...;C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39;C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\Scripts;...

If this is your first time installing Python, simply check “add Python to PATH” option in installation.

Install system dependencies on Windows

In Windows, you need to install git, and Visual C++ redistributive package

Clone code

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/lisa.git
cd lisa

Development Environment

For making any code changes and running test cases in LISA, you will need to setup a development environment. Instructions for setting up the development environment are present here: Creating a LISA development virtual environment.

Runtime Environment

This installation method is used to run LISA if no change in source code is desired, for example, when setting up automation with LISA in pipelines. Direct installation requires pip 22.2.2 or higher. If the version of pip provided by your installation is older than this, a newer version should be installed.

python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip

The example below will install LISA directly for the invoking user. No need to run as Administrator.

python3 -m pip install --editable .[azure] --config-settings editable_mode=compat

Verify installation

Ensure LISA is installed or a virtual environment is activated.

Run LISA with the lisa command

With no argument specified, LISA will run some sample test cases with the default runbook (examples/runbook/hello_world.yml) on your local computer. In the root folder of LISA, you can run this command to verify your local LISA environment setup. This test will not modify your computer.

lisa

FAQ and Troubleshooting

If there’s any problem during the installation, please refer to FAQ and troubleshooting.