WPILib Installation Guide

This guide walks through installing the WPILib desktop development environment. It includes WPILib tools, Visual Studio Code, and the dependencies needed to develop and deploy robot code. A full installation is required for desktop Java and C++ development. Python teams can use it for the WPILib VS Code setup and tools, or select a tools-only installation, and must also follow the Python setup guide.

Prerequisites

Supported Operating Systems and Architectures:

  • Windows 11, 64 bit only. Arm-based Windows 11 is unsupported.

  • Debian 13 ‘Trixie’, 64 bit only.

  • Ubuntu 26.04, 64 bit only.

  • macOS 15 or higher, both Intel and Arm.

Note

Linux distributions other than those mentioned above that contain glibc >= 2.41 may work, but are unsupported.

Warning

Windows 10 support from Microsoft ended in October 2025. While we will not explicitly block Windows 10 from being used, future releases may inadvertently break compatibility with Windows 10. We will not postpone these changes in order to maintain Windows 10 compatibility, and Windows 10 support may break as a result.

Note

C++ compilation is memory intensive. A minimum of 32 GB of RAM is recommended for C++ teams.

This tutorial shows Windows 11, but the steps are identical for all operating systems. Notes differentiating operating systems will be shown.

WPILib is designed to install to different folders for different years, so that it is not necessary to uninstall a previous version before installing this year’s WPILib.

Downloading

You can download the latest release of the installer from GitHub.

Once on the GitHub releases page, scroll to the Downloads section.

Latest WPILib release page on GitHub

Then click on the correct binary for your OS and architecture to begin the download.

Extracting the Installer

When you download the WPILib installer, it is distributed as a disk image file .iso for Windows, .tar.gz for Linux, and distributed as a DMG for MacOS.

Windows 11 users can right click on the downloaded disk image and select Mount to open it. Then launch WPILibInstaller.exe.

The menu after right clicking on an .iso file to choose "Mount".

Note

Other installed programs may associate with iso files and the mount option may not appear. If that software does not give the option to mount or extract the iso file, then follow the directions below.

You can use 7-zip to extract the disk image by right-clicking, selecting Show more options at the bottom of the context menu, selecting 7-Zip and selecting Extract to….

After right clicking on the .iso file go to "7-Zip" then "Extract to....".

After opening the .iso file, launch the installer by opening WPILibInstaller.exe.

Note

After launching the installer, Windows may display a window titled “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then select Run anyway to run the installer.

Note

Ensure you’ve ejected any previous WPILibInstaller images from the desktop before starting installation

macOS users can double click on the downloaded dmg and then select WPILibInstaller to launch the application.

Show the macOS screen after double clicking the .dmg file.

If a warning is shown about WPILibInstaller being downloaded from the internet, select Open.

Warning about WPILibInstaller being downloaded from the internet

Linux users should extract the downloaded .tar.gz and then launch WPILibInstaller. Ubuntu treats executables in the file explorer as shared libraries, so double-clicking won’t run them. Run the following commands in a terminal instead with <version> replaced with the version you’re installing.

$ tar -xf WPILib_Linux-<version>.tar.gz
$ cd WPILib_Linux-<version>/
$ ./WPILibInstaller

Running the Installer

Upon opening the installer, you’ll be presented with the below screen. Go ahead and press Start.

Start of InstallerAn overview of the installer options

This showcases a list of options included with the WPILib installation.

You will notice two buttons, Install for this User and Install for all Users. Install for this User only installs it on the current user account, and does not require administrator privileges. However, Install for all Users installs the tools for all system accounts and will require administrator access. Install for all Users is not an option for macOS and Linux.

Note

If you select Install for all Users, Windows will prompt for administrator access through UAC during installation.

Select the option that is appropriate for you, and you’ll presented with the following installation screen.

This next screen involves downloading VS Code. Unfortunately, due to licensing reasons, VS Code can not be bundled with the installer.

Overview of VS Code download options

  • Download for this computer only

    • This downloads VS Code only for the current platform, which is also the smallest download.

  • Skip and don’t use VS Code

    • Skips installing VS Code. Useful for advanced installations or configurations. Generally not recommended.

  • Select existing VS Code archive for offline install on this computer

    • Selecting this option will bring up a prompt allowing you to select a pre-existing zip file of VS Code that has been downloaded by the installer previously. This option does not let you select an already installed copy of VS Code on your machine.

  • Create VS Code archives to share with other computers/OSes for offline install

    • This option downloads and saves a copy of VS Code for all platforms, which is useful for sharing with the installer for future offline installs.

Go ahead and select Download for this computer only. This will begin the download process and can take a bit depending on internet connectivity (it’s ~300MB). Once the download is done, select Next. You should be presented with a screen that looks similar to the one below.

Note

teams upgrading from Beta will already have a version of VS Code installed. However, it’s still recommended to select Download for this computer only to ensure the latest recommended version of VS Code is installed

Installer progress bar

After installation is complete, you will be presented with the finished screen.

Installer finished screen.

Important

WPILib installs a separate version of VS Code instead of using an existing system installation. Each season has its own copy, such as WPILib VS Code 2027. Launch WPILib VS Code when working on a robot project.

WPILib and its tools are installed. Press Finish to exit the installer.

Post-Installation

Some operating systems require some final action to complete installation.

After installation, the installer opens the WPILib VS Code folder. Drag the VS Code application to the dock. Eject WPILibInstaller image from the desktop.

Some Linux versions require you to give the desktop shortcut the ability to launch. Right click on the desktop icon and select Allow Launching.

Menu that pops up after right click the desktop icon in Linux.

Furthermore, modern Ubuntu versions disable the kernel user namespaces feature for unknown applications. This means that the sandboxing feature won’t work on the WPILib VS Code. To enable sandboxing for the WPILib applications, AppArmor profiles are provided, and can be installed using the command below.

$ sudo cp $XDG_DATA_HOME/wpilib/YEAR/wpilibcode/AppArmor/* /etc/apparmor.d/
$ sudo systemctl reload apparmor.service

The above will fix the following error:

The SUID sandbox helper binary was found, but is not configured correctly. Rather than run without sandboxing I'm aborting now. You need to make sure that ~/.local/share/wpilib/2027/advantagescope/chrome-sandbox is owned by root and has mode 4755.

Note

Installing desktop tools and rebooting will create a folder on the desktop called YYYY WPILib Tools, where YYYY is the current year. Desktop tool shortcuts are not available on Linux and macOS.

Additional C++ Installation for Simulation

C++ robot simulation requires that a native compiler to be installed. For Windows, this would be Visual Studio 2026 (not VS Code), macOS requires Xcode 15.3 or later, and Linux requires GCC 14, on Ubuntu/Debian it is provided by the g++-14 package.

Ensure the Desktop Development with C++ option is checked in the Visual Studio installer for simulation support.

Screenshot of the Visual Studio build tools option

What is Installed?

The Offline Installer installs the following components:

  • Visual Studio Code - The supported IDE for 2019 and later robot code development. The offline installer sets up a separate copy of VS Code for WPILib development, even if you already have VS Code on your machine. This is done because some of the settings that make the WPILib setup work may break existing workflows if you use VS Code for other projects.

  • C++ Compiler - The toolchains for building C++ code for the Systemcore

  • Gradle - The specific version of Gradle used for building/deploying C++ or Java robot code

  • Java JDK/JRE - A specific version of the Java JDK/JRE that is used to build Java robot code and to run any of the Java based Tools (Dashboards, etc.). This exists side by side with any existing JDK installs and does not overwrite the JAVA_HOME variable

  • WPILib Tools - OutlineViewer, Glass, SysId, Data Log Tool, AdvantageScope, Elastic, WPIcal

  • WPILib Dependencies - OpenCV, etc.

  • VS Code Extensions - WPILib and Java/C++/Python extensions for robot code development in VS Code

  • Documentation - Offline copies of this wpilib-docs documentation and Java/C++/Python APIs

Note

It’s not recommended to use the VS Code Backup and Settings Sync feature to sync settings between a regular VS Code installation and the WPILib VS Code installation. This could lead to either installation being broken.

Uninstalling

WPILib is designed to install to different folders for different years, so that it is not necessary to uninstall a previous version before installing this year’s WPILib. However, the following instructions can be used to uninstall WPILib if desired.

  1. Delete the appropriate wpilib folder (c:\Users\Public\wpilib\YYYY where YYYY is the year to uninstall)

  2. Delete the desktop icons at C:\Users\Public\Public Desktop

  1. Delete the appropriate wpilib folder (~/wpilib/YYYY where YYYY is the year to uninstall)

  1. Delete the appropriate wpilib folder ($XDG_DATA_HOME/wpilib/YYYY where YYYY is the year to uninstall). eg rm -rf $XDG_DATA_HOME/wpilib/YYYY

Troubleshooting

In case the installer fails, please open an issue on the installer repository. A link is available here. The installer should give a message on the cause of the error, please include this in the description of your issue.