How to Install Composer and PHP on Windows 10/11

Updated September 2026 | 83 replies

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You opened cmd.exe, typed composer require, and Windows answered 'composer' is not recognized as an internal or external command. This DevAnswers walkthrough installs PHP 8.5 (or 8.4 if you need to match an existing server) plus Composer on Windows 10, 11, or Windows Server 2019/2022, covering the Visual C++ Redistributable prerequisite, the NTS vs TS download choice, and both Composer install paths.

Prerequisites

64-bit Windows 10 (build 19045+), Windows 11, or Windows Server 2019/2022.
Administrator rights, required to extract PHP into C:\php and modify the system PATH.
About 250 MB of free disk for PHP plus Composer.
The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. The Microsoft documentation states that “PHP requires the Visual C runtime (CRT)” and that the “Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2022 is suitable for use with all PHP versions“. This is the most-commonly-missed prerequisite. Install the VS 2022 redistributable from Microsoft’s redistributable downloads page before extracting PHP.

Choose Your PHP Version: 8.5 or 8.4

Two PHP branches are in active support today, and either works fine with current Composer. Pick based on what your deployment target runs.

PHP 8.5 (default recommendation). Per php.net, “the current latest stable release of PHP is PHP 8.5.6, which was released on May 7, 2026“. PHP 8.5 reached General Availability on November 20, 2025, and active support runs until December 31, 2027.
PHP 8.4. Pick this only if your production server is still on 8.4 and you want your local environment to match. PHP 8.4’s active support began on November 21, 2024 and is scheduled to end on December 31, 2026.

Composer itself has a much lower floor: per the official Composer documentation, “Composer in its latest version requires PHP 7.2.5 to run“, so both 8.4 and 8.5 are well above what Composer needs. If you need to run multiple PHP versions on the same machine for different projects, our guide on running multiple PHP versions with Apache covers the parallel-install pattern.

Non-Thread Safe (NTS) vs Thread Safe (TS): Which to Download

The windows.php.net download page lists every release in two flavours: Non-Thread Safe (NTS) and Thread Safe (TS). The choice depends entirely on what runs your PHP. The download page itself spells out the rule for each common case:

CLI and Composer: “Use NTS (Non-Thread Safe)“. Anything you run from cmd.exe or PowerShell, including composer itself, falls into this bucket.
IIS with FastCGI: “Use NTS (Non-Thread Safe)“. The FastCGI handler runs PHP as a separate process, so thread safety isn’t required.
Apache with mod_php: “Use TS (Thread Safe)“.

If you’re setting up PHP for local development, Composer use, or to run a CLI script, pick NTS. The most common reason to pick TS is if you specifically need Apache plus mod_php on Windows, which is rare in 2026; even Apache deployments now usually pair with PHP-FPM via mod_proxy_fcgi (which uses NTS).

What Does VS17 Mean on the Download Page

Every PHP for Windows download is tagged with a compiler version like VS17. From the windows.php.net documentation: “The VS17 build of PHP for Windows refers to versions of PHP compiled using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 C++ compiler“. The number (17) is the internal version of the Visual Studio IDE; VS 2022 is the seventeenth release.

This naming “is used to distinguish builds based on the compiler toolset and corresponding C++ Redistributable requirements“. In practice, a VS17 binary needs the VS 2022 redistributable installed (the prereq we covered above), which Microsoft documents as suitable for all PHP versions. Older PHP releases shipped as VS16 (Visual Studio 2019), and the VS 2022 redistributable covers their runtime as well.

Install PHP 8.5 on Windows

With the VC++ Redistributable installed, you’re ready to download and extract PHP. We’ll put it at C:\php: short, no spaces, easy to type, easy to add to PATH.

Open windows.php.net/download and download the VS17 x64 Non Thread Safe zip for PHP 8.5 (or 8.4, depending on what you chose above). If you picked TS in the NTS vs TS section earlier because you’ll run Apache with mod_php, download the VS17 x64 Thread Safe zip instead.
Create the folder C:\php and extract the zip’s contents directly into it (you should see php.exe, php-cgi.exe, and an ext folder at the top level).
In the C:\php folder, copy php.ini-development to php.ini as your starting configuration. Use php.ini-production instead if this install is for a production server. Then open php.ini in a text editor, find the line ; extension_dir = "ext" in the Windows section, and uncomment it (remove the leading ;) so PHP looks in C:\php\ext\ for extension DLLs.
Add C:\php to the system PATH so Windows can find php.exe from any directory.

Open an elevated PowerShell prompt. Right-click the Start menu and choose Terminal (Admin) on Windows 11, or Windows PowerShell (Admin) on Windows 10 / Server 2019. Then run:

PowerShell

$machinePath = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'Machine')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Path', $machinePath + ';C:\php', 'Machine')

This reads the current Machine-scope PATH explicitly (using $env:Path instead would read the combined User+Machine value and bake your User entries into the system PATH), appends C:\php, and writes the result back. Per Microsoft’s documentation, “The PATH environment variable is a list of directories Windows searches when you run an executable from the command line“. Close the PowerShell window and open a fresh one for the change to take effect.

Verify PHP is on the path:

PowerShell

php --version

You should see something like PHP 8.5.6 (cli) (built: ...) (NTS Visual C++ 2022 x64), or (TS Visual C++ 2022 x64) if you picked the Thread Safe build. If you instead see “PHP is not recognized“, the new PowerShell session didn’t pick up the updated PATH. Close every cmd.exe and PowerShell window, then try a fresh one. If you see a Visual C++ runtime error, the VC++ 2022 Redistributable from the prerequisites step is not installed.

Install Composer with Composer-Setup.exe (Recommended)

The Composer documentation describes the Windows installer as the easiest path: “Installation – Windows. Using the Installer. This is the easiest way to get Composer set up on your machine“. For most readers (single-user Windows desktops, local development setups) this is the right choice.

From the Composer documentation: “Download and run Composer-Setup.exe” (you can grab it directly from getcomposer.org/Composer-Setup.exe).
The installer asks where php.exe lives. If you followed the previous section, point it at C:\php\php.exe. The installer will check a few php.ini settings and warn you if anything is missing.
Optional: enter a proxy URL if your network requires one for outbound HTTPS to packagist.org.
Per the Composer docs, the installer “will install the latest Composer version and set up your PATH so that you can call composer from any directory in your command line“. You don’t have to edit PATH yourself.

After the installer finishes, open a fresh cmd.exe or PowerShell window and run:

PowerShell

composer --version

You should see a line like Composer version 2.x.x .... From this point you can run composer require, composer install, or composer create-project from any directory.

Install Composer Manually with composer.phar (PowerShell Path)

If you can’t run a GUI installer (locked-down corporate machine, CI build agent, remote SSH session, or you’re provisioning Composer for multiple users) install Composer manually as a PHAR file. The Composer documentation describes this path as: “Change to a directory on your PATH and run the installer following the Download page instructions to download composer.phar. Create a new composer.bat file alongside composer.phar“.

For these instructions, install Composer into C:\php alongside PHP, since C:\php is already on your PATH from the install-PHP step. The shape below uses PowerShell’s Invoke-WebRequest for the download (instead of php -r "copy(...)" from the official docs) so the install works before any PHP extensions are enabled. Always grab the current SHA-384 hash from the getcomposer.org download page and substitute it into the verify step.

PowerShell

cd C:\php
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://getcomposer.org/installer' -OutFile composer-setup.php -UseBasicParsing
php -r "if (hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === 'EXPECTED_HASH_FROM_DOWNLOAD_PAGE') { echo 'Installer verified'.PHP_EOL; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'.PHP_EOL; unlink('composer-setup.php'); }"
php composer-setup.php
Remove-Item composer-setup.php

Important: replace EXPECTED_HASH_FROM_DOWNLOAD_PAGE with the SHA-384 string that appears on the getcomposer.org download page at the time you run the install. Composer rotates this hash with each release; pasting an old one from a tutorial will silently install nothing.

Per the docs, “The installer will check a few PHP settings and then download composer.phar to your working directory“. Once you have composer.phar in C:\php, create a Windows shim so composer works as a command. From an elevated PowerShell prompt:

PowerShell

Set-Content -Path 'C:\php\composer.bat' -Value '@php "%~dp0composer.phar" %*' -Encoding ASCII

Now composer --version works from any cmd.exe or PowerShell session, exactly as if you had used Composer-Setup.exe. To upgrade later, run composer self-update.

Next steps

Confirm both binaries are on your PATH from a fresh terminal:

PowerShell

php --version
composer --version

Most projects need a few extensions enabled before composer install succeeds: curl, mbstring, openssl, zip, and fileinfo are the common ones. They’re all bundled in the Windows zip; you just have to uncomment them in your C:\php\php.ini from step 3 of the install. See our companion guide on finding and editing php.ini for the extension= syntax. From there, common next steps are connecting PHP to a database with PHP MySQLi prepared statements, or, if you’ll deploy to a Linux production server, follow our guide on upgrading PHP on Ubuntu and Debian so your local 8.5 environment matches the host. The managed alternative is a platform such as Cloudways, where the PHP version is a dropdown in the server settings rather than a package install. One thing to check first: as of September 2026 its newest offered version is PHP 8.4, so a local 8.5 environment would need to target 8.4 there.

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How to Install Composer and PHP on Windows 10/11

Prerequisites #

Choose Your PHP Version: 8.5 or 8.4 #

Non-Thread Safe (NTS) vs Thread Safe (TS): Which to Download #

What Does VS17 Mean on the Download Page #

Install PHP 8.5 on Windows #

Install Composer with Composer-Setup.exe (Recommended) #

Install Composer Manually with composer.phar (PowerShell Path) #

Next steps #

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Prerequisites

Choose Your PHP Version: 8.5 or 8.4

Non-Thread Safe (NTS) vs Thread Safe (TS): Which to Download

What Does VS17 Mean on the Download Page

Install PHP 8.5 on Windows

Install Composer with Composer-Setup.exe (Recommended)

Install Composer Manually with composer.phar (PowerShell Path)

Next steps