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Installing Miniconda on Windows is mostly clicking Next, with two decisions buried in the middle that determine how much PATH-related grief you collect later: who to install for, and what to do about the PATH checkbox. This guide walks the install on Windows 11 (current installers require 64-bit Windows 11, version 23H2 or later), explains both decisions, gets conda working in PowerShell and ends with the silent install used for fleets.
Download the Windows installer
Download Miniconda3-latest-Windows-x86_64.exe from the official repository at repo.anaconda.com/miniconda/. The latest filename always resolves to the newest release, currently 26.5.3-2 with Python 3.14 in base. There are also builds pinned to older Python versions, and the Miniconda download guide explains that naming scheme along with the rest of the index.
Verifying the download is optional and cheap. In a terminal:
certutil -hashfile Miniconda3-latest-Windows-x86_64.exe SHA256Then compare against the SHA256 column shown next to the file on the repo index.
Miniconda installer options and which to pick
Run the .exe and accept the license. Most screens are fine at their defaults. Two aren't.
Just Me or All Users
Pick Just Me. It installs into your user profile, needs no administrator rights and keeps conda's frequent self-updates from demanding elevation every time. All Users has a real audience, shared lab machines and terminal servers where several accounts need one install, and it drags admin rights into every future update, so it should be a deliberate choice, never the default one.
Add Miniconda to PATH or not
The installer offers to add Miniconda to your PATH and advises against it in the same breath. Take the advice and leave it off. The reasoning, spelled out in Anaconda's Windows install documentation, is that the conda directories hold hundreds of unrelated binaries which would then shadow or collide with other software on the machine, active environment or not. I once watched a PATH'd conda hijack the ssl DLLs of an unrelated tool, and the afternoon it took to diagnose is the reason this paragraph exists. There's a supported entry point that needs no PATH surgery at all, covered next.
Of the remaining options, install location and cache clearing are fine as-is on a personal machine, and "register as default Python" only deserves a tick when nothing else on the box provides Python.
First run in the Anaconda Prompt
When the installer finishes, open the Start Menu and type "Anaconda Prompt". The entry named Anaconda Prompt (miniconda3) is a cmd session preloaded with conda's activation hooks, and its prompt shows base already active:
(base) C:\Users\yourname>Confirm the install:
conda --versionThe current release answers conda 26.5.3. Opening a plain cmd or PowerShell window instead gets you "conda is not recognized as an internal or external command", and that isn't breakage, it's the PATH decision from earlier working as designed. Plain terminals learn about conda in the next section; the error itself, with its relatives, is dissected in the Miniconda troubleshooting guide.
Make conda work in PowerShell
Living in the Anaconda Prompt is fine for occasional use. For daily work in PowerShell or Windows Terminal, run this once from the Anaconda Prompt:
conda init powershellIt writes conda's activation hook into your PowerShell profile; PowerShell remains a supported conda init target alongside cmd.exe and the Unix shells. Close and reopen PowerShell, the (base) prefix appears and conda activate behaves normally.
One snag can follow: PowerShell refusing to load the new profile with a "running scripts is disabled" complaint. That's the execution policy blocking profile scripts, and relaxing it for your user account (RemoteSigned is the usual choice) is a one-time fix. After that, creating conda environments on Windows works with the same commands and flags as everywhere else.
