Mapnik binaries can be installed and configured manually on windows. See http://mapnik.org/download/ for the latest download and instructions on installing.

If you are interested in installing Mapnik on other operating systems see Mapnik-Installation

If you an interested in compiling Mapnik from source on windows see the windows scripts at https://github.com/mapnik/mapnik-packaging

The Windows builds have a slightly less complete feature set than is possible from source builds. Full support is planned, and this table tracks the versions in which new features are added:

• • : not available

• ***: available

• Note: as of Mapnik 0.6.1 memory-mapped files are disabled in the Shapefile Plugin in windows builds (see #342)

This Guide will walk you through installing Mapnik and then running a test script to generate the sample map below:

1. Download the Mapnik binary

2. Place the unzipped folder into "C:\mapnik-v2.2.0"

3. Set your system and/or users environment variables:

• Hint: Control Panel->System->Advanced->Environment Variables a. add ;C:\mapnik-v2.2.0\lib; to the PATH variable.
  • Note: The ; characters are separators so add them before or after other entries that may be in your PATH variable. If you are only adding C:\mapnik-v2.2.0\lib (and your PATH has not been modified/added to yet then technically you can leave out the ; until you add more entries.
  • Note: you may also need to set your user path environment variable.
  • If the variable PATH is not already present, add it.
  • Setting this correctly allows the Mapnik python bindings to find the mapnik.dll b. for PYTHON support add:
  • PYTHON 2.7: ;C:\mapnik-v2.2.0\python\2.7\site-packages; to the PYTHONPATH variable.
  • Setting this correctly allows Python to find the Mapnik python bindings when you do >>> import mapnik

4. Open a new console by running "cmd" to test settings:

• Type "path" to make sure your PATH contains C:\mapnik-v2.2.0\lib

5. Run C:\Python27\python.exe, then type at a python prompt:

import mapnik

• If you get no error message, you made it!
• If you do get an error message, see Troubleshooting below

6. open explorer, go to C:\mapnik-v2.2.0\demo\python, double click rundemo.py

• you should see several demo.* files output.

7. If you run into errors, confirm that you've added the right paths to your environment.

• Post further errors to the mailing list for assistance.

8. Head over to GettingStarted for your first tutorial on the Mapnik Python API.

You get an error like:

Can't find mapnik.dll

Solution: make sure that you complete Step 3.a properly.

Problem: When importing mapnik in python you get:

    >>> import mapnik
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
    ImportError: No module named mapnik

Solution: make sure that you have put the site-packages folder on your PYTHONPATH by completing Step 3.b.

Problem: When importing mapnik in python you get:

    >>> import mapnik
    [...snip...]
    from _mapnik import *
    ImportError: DLL load failed: This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Solution:

• You likely have an older system and need to install the 2008 Visual Studio Runtime Libraries (msvcrt90.dll) from the Microsoft Developer Network. If that does not fix it you may also be missing the 2005 version
• This problem may also occur on a freshly installed system that is missing some dependecies or has an incompatible version of some DLLs. In my case I had to install the MSVC dependencies (vcredist_x86.exe) and additionally put a downloaded msvcr90.dll into the mapnik/lib folder.
• You can get more information on what is missing or incompatible by examining mapnik.dll with Dependency Walker. On a 64bit system you must use the 32bit Version.