Install Elasticsearch with Windows MSI Installer

Download the .msi package for Elasticsearch v6.8.23 from https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi

Double-click the downloaded .msi package to launch a GUI wizard that will guide you through the installation process. You can view help on any step by clicking the ? button, which reveals an aside panel with additional information for each input:

Within the first screen, select the directory for the installation. In addition, select directories for where data, logs and configuration will be placed or use the default locations:

Then select whether to install as a service or start Elasticsearch manually as needed. When installing as a service, you can also configure the Windows account to run the service with, whether the service should be started after installation and the Windows startup behaviour:

Common configuration settings are exposed within the Configuration section, allowing the cluster name, node name and roles to be set, in addition to memory and network settings:

A list of common plugins that can be downloaded and installed as part of the installation, with the option to configure an HTTPS proxy through which to download these plugins.

As of version 6.3.0, X-Pack is now bundled by default. The final step allows a choice of the type of license to install, in addition to security configuration and built-in user configuration:

After clicking the install button, the installation will begin:

…​and will indicate when it has been successfully installed:

The .msi can also install Elasticsearch using the command line. The simplest installation using the same defaults as the GUI is achieved by first navigating to the download directory, then running:

msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn

By default, msiexec.exe does not wait for the installation process to complete, since it runs in the Windows subsystem. To wait on the process to finish and ensure that %ERRORLEVEL% is set accordingly, it is recommended to use start /wait to create a process and wait for it to exit

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn

As with any MSI installation package, a log file for the installation process can be found within the %TEMP% directory, with a randomly generated name adhering to the format MSI<random>.LOG. The path to a log file can be supplied using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn /l install.log

Supported Windows Installer command line arguments can be viewed using

msiexec.exe /help

…​or by consulting the Windows Installer SDK Command-Line Options.

All settings exposed within the GUI are also available as command line arguments (referred to as properties within Windows Installer documentation) that can be passed to msiexec.exe:

To pass a value, simply append the property name and value using the format <PROPERTYNAME>="<VALUE>" to the installation command. For example, to use a different installation directory to the default one:

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn INSTALLDIR="C:\Custom Install Directory{version}"

Consult the Windows Installer SDK Command-Line Options for additional rules related to values containing quotation marks.

The Elastic Stack features try to automatically create a number of indices within Elasticsearch. By default, Elasticsearch is configured to allow automatic index creation, and no additional steps are required. However, if you have disabled automatic index creation in Elasticsearch, you must configure action.auto_create_index in elasticsearch.yml to allow X-Pack to create the following indices:

action.auto_create_index: .monitoring*,.watches,.triggered_watches,.watcher-history*,.ml*

Once installed, Elasticsearch can be started from the command line, if not installed as a service and configured to start when installation completes, as follows:

.\bin\elasticsearch.exe

The command line terminal will display output similar to the following:

By default, Elasticsearch runs in the foreground, prints its logs to STDOUT in addition to the <cluster name>.log file within LOGSDIRECTORY, and can be stopped by pressing Ctrl-C.

Elasticsearch loads its configuration from the %ES_PATH_CONF%\elasticsearch.yml file by default. The format of this config file is explained in Configuring Elasticsearch.

Any settings that can be specified in the config file can also be specified on the command line, using the -E syntax as follows:

.\bin\elasticsearch.exe -E cluster.name=my_cluster -E node.name=node_1

You can test that your Elasticsearch node is running by sending an HTTP request to port 9200 on localhost:

GET /

which should give you a response something like this:

{
  "name" : "Cp8oag6",
  "cluster_name" : "elasticsearch",
  "cluster_uuid" : "AT69_T_DTp-1qgIJlatQqA",
  "version" : {
    "number" : "6.8.23",
    "build_flavor" : "default",
    "build_type" : "zip",
    "build_hash" : "f27399d",
    "build_date" : "2016-03-30T09:51:41.449Z",
    "build_snapshot" : false,
    "lucene_version" : "7.7.3",
    "minimum_wire_compatibility_version" : "1.2.3",
    "minimum_index_compatibility_version" : "1.2.3"
  },
  "tagline" : "You Know, for Search"
}

Elasticsearch can be installed as a service to run in the background or start automatically at boot time without any user interaction. This can be achieved upon installation using the following command line options

Once installed, Elasticsearch will appear within the Services control panel:

and can be stopped and restarted from within the control panel, or from the command line using:

with Command Prompt:

sc.exe stop Elasticsearch
sc.exe start Elasticsearch

with PowerShell:

Get-Service Elasticsearch | Stop-Service
Get-Service Elasticsearch | Start-Service

Changes can be made to jvm.options and elasticsearch.yml configuration files to configure the service after installation. Most changes (like JVM settings) will require a restart of the service in order to take effect.

The .msi package supports upgrading an installed version of Elasticsearch to a newer version. The upgrade process through the GUI handles upgrading all installed plugins as well as retaining both your data and configuration.

Downloading and double-clicking on a newer version of the .msi package will launch the GUI wizard. The first step will list the read-only properties from the previous installation:

The next step allows certain configuration options to be changed:

Finally, the plugins step allows currently installed plugins to be upgraded or removed, and for plugins not currently installed, to be downloaded and installed:

The .msi can also upgrade Elasticsearch using the command line.

The simplest upgrade, assuming Elasticsearch was installed using all defaults, is achieved by first navigating to the download directory, then running:

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn

Similar to the install process, a path to a log file for the upgrade process can be passed using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /i elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn /l upgrade.log

The .msi package handles uninstallation of all directories and files added as part of installation.

MSI installer packages do not provide a GUI for uninstallation. An installed program can be uninstalled by pressing the Windows key and typing add or remove programs to open the system settings.

Once opened, find the Elasticsearch installation within the list of installed applications, click and choose Uninstall:

This will launch the uninstallation process.

Uninstallation can also be performed from the command line by navigating to the directory containing the .msi package and running:

start /wait msiexec.exe /x elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn

Similar to the install process, a path to a log file for the uninstallation process can be passed using the /l command line argument

start /wait msiexec.exe /x elasticsearch-6.8.23.msi /qn /l uninstall.log