How to Install Claude Code on a Windows Laptop

Claude Code is Anthropic’s official CLI that lets you use Claude directly from your terminal. This guide walks through installing it on a Windows laptop using PowerShell.

Prerequisites

You need Node.js 18 or higher installed. Check if you already have it:

node --version
npm --version

If those commands return versions, you’re good to skip ahead. If not, install Node.js first.

Step 1: Install Node.js (if needed)

The easiest way on Windows is via winget, which comes built into Windows 11:

winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS

After installation, close and reopen PowerShell, then verify:

node --version
npm --version

Step 2: Install Claude Code

Install the Claude Code CLI globally via npm:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Verify the installation:

claude --version

Step 3: Authenticate

Run Claude Code for the first time:

claude

It will open a browser window asking you to log in with your Anthropic account and authorise the CLI. Once done, you’ll be dropped into an interactive session in your terminal.

Step 4: Using Claude Code in a Project

Navigate to any project folder and start a session:

cd C:\Users\YourName\Projects\my-project
claude

Claude will read the files in your current directory and you can start asking it to help with code, explain things, or make changes.

Tips

• Run claude --help to see all available flags and commands.
• You can pass a one-off prompt without entering interactive mode: claude "explain this repo".
• Claude Code works well inside VS Code’s integrated terminal — no extra setup needed.

Troubleshooting

claude is not recognised as a command Close and reopen PowerShell after installing. If it still fails, npm’s global bin folder may not be on your PATH. Check with:

npm config get prefix

Add the output path (e.g. C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\npm) to your system environment variables under PATH.

That’s it — Claude Code should now be running on your Windows machine. Give it a project folder and start experimenting.