OLD METHOD: Installing GDAL / OGR for Python on Windows

It is now even easier to install GDAL for Python on Windows – see the new post here: Installing GDAL / OGR for Python on Windows ! Do not use the steps below unless you have issues with the above…

After years of having different GDAL versions on various Windows and Linux setups I have finally found out how to install recent versions of GDAL (and OGR) on Windows; and it is surprisingly easy! You will need administrator rights on your computer.

Note that the following situations may cause issues with installing GDAL for Python:

• Multiple Python installations. For example: ArcGIS installs a version of Python that is not officially registered with Windows (making it a bit more tricky to install GDAL to it). See step 1 for more information.
• GDAL may already be installed and required by other software (i.e. PostGIS). See step 7 for information and workarounds.

Overview:

1. Determine your desired Python install and version
2. Get the GDAL core files
3. Get the Python bindings
4. Install GDAL
5. Edit Environment Variables
6. Install Python bindings
7. Issues/workarounds for existing GDAL installations
8. Common issues

1. Determine your desired Python install and version

See the post on Locating Python and adding it to your system Path for information about how to find the Python install you wish to use (you do not need to add it to your system Path to continue with the steps below, but it may be useful).

Once you have figured out which Python you are going to use, open the Python interpreter in your normal way (or double click on its python.exe). It will print version information at the top when it opens, for example: Python 2.7.10 (default, May 23 2015, 09:40:32) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32

The important information is highlighted above: my version is Python 2.7 (the additional .10 is not important) and it is 32 bit.

2. Get the GDAL core files

This site: http://www.gisinternals.com/release.php is where you download GDAL. Scroll down to the bottom of the table and click on the relevant link in the ‘Downloads’ column – the Arch. column either shows if it is 32 (win32) or 64 bit (x64), select the one corresponding to your Python.

From the new page download the GDAL Core file: gdal-[version]-[build]-core.msi (e.g. gdal-111-1800-core.msi)

3. Get the Python Bindings

Fortunately the Python bindings are located right here as well, called GDAL-[gdalVersion.architecture]-py[pythonVersion].[exe/msi] (e.g. GDAL-1.11.1.win32-py2.7.msi), just make sure to download the version matching your installed version of Python.

4. Install GDAL

Simply run the GDAL Core installer downloaded in step 2, and note the install path if you change it.

5. Edit Environmental Variables

WARNING: Don’t make any mistakes here (like deleting things), or your system might not work…

To bring up the Environment Variables dialogue:

• open Control Panel
• go into System
• click on Advanced system settings on the left
• then click Environment Variables at the bottom

First you need to identify if there will be any conflicts with versions of GDAL that may have been installed previously. We will be modifying two environment variables, one called GDAL_DATA and the other the system Path.

To check for previous GDAL versions:

1. Scroll down in the System variables pane (at the bottom) and look for a variable called GDAL_DATA
2. Scroll down further in the System variables pane and find the Path variable, click Edit and copy the contents to a text editor, then carefully search through the content and see if there are any references to GDAL
3. Check the User variables pane for the same (less likely that things are here, but it is worth checking)

If GDAL_DATA does not exist and there are no references to GDAL in the Path variable, there should be no conflicts and you can proceed with the below. Otherwise check out the information in step 7 before proceeding.

In the System variables pane, scroll the box down, select the Path variable, then go to Edit, hit End to get the cursor at the end, add a semi-colon (;) and then enter the path to your GDAL installation – so, for my installation, I added this:

;C:\Program Files (x86)\GDAL

Be very careful not to insert any additional spaces before or after the path (see comments)!

Click Ok, then click New and enter the following:
Variable name: GDAL_DATA
Variable value is the path to the GDAL data directory – so for me:

C:\Program Files (x86)\GDAL\gdal-data

To test the installation, open up your command prompt (type cmd in the Run dialogue), type ogr2ogr and hit enter. This is one of the programs included with GDAL; if your Path is set correctly it will be accessible from anywhere. If some stuff about usage and options is printed out, GDAL is installed correctly and the Environment variables worked. If it instead says: ‘ogr2ogr’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file., there is a problem. First try restarting the computer, if ogr2ogr still doesn’t work check your Environment variables for spelling mistakes or typos.

6. Install Python bindings

Run the Python bindings installer downloaded in step 2. If you have have multiple Python installations or a non-standard setup, make sure to check which Python the installer is installing to.

To test the entire setup, open up the relevant Python prompt and enter:

import ogr

Hit enter, then:

import gdal

If both of these run without printing out anything, you are good to go!

7. Issues/workarounds for existing GDAL installations

If another program has already installed GDAL it might cause problems if you override the Path and GDAL_DATA variables as the library versions may mismatch.

Use information about where the variables point to identify which program installed GDAL, and think carefully about whether you still require it. Ideally you can uninstall the existing version and continue with just one version, if you do this make sure to clean up the Path and GDAL_DATA variables so they point to the correct locations and continue with steps 5 and 6 above. Alternately you might be able to just get the bindings for the version that has already been installed, allowing Python to access that.

If the above are not possible the best solution is to temporarily alter the variables depending on which software is required. Possible ways to do this (none are great for all situations):

• Go through the process of editing your environment variables, as in step 5, each time you need to use the other program (slow, fiddly)
• Create a new Windows user account for one or the other and set the corresponding Path and GDAL_DATA as User variables (not System variables) for the given account – these will take precedence over the System variables and point to the correct locations, but only when that user is logged in (i.e. new user might be PythonGDAL, but there would be errors if a user attempted to use Python with GDAL from a different login)
• The command prompt can temporarily override the system path, which endures as long as that prompt remains open (see below for instructions). This can only be used when Python interpreter/scripts are run from the command prompt.

To temporarily override the system path use the set command. If called with no arguments set will list the current variables, but its normal usage is set [variable]=[path], for example: set path=C:\Program Files (x86)\GDAL. It may be easiest to make this into a batch file which sets both the Path and GDAL_DATA variables, which is run from the command line before opening the interpreter or running scripts (remember these also will have to be done from the same command line, as the variables are lost when the command prompt is closed). To do this: open Notepad, enter the relevant commands, for example (note that you will probably want to put Python on your path as well, for convenience):

set path=C:\Program Files (x86)\GDAL;C:\Python27
set GDAL_DATA=C:\Program Files (x86)\GDAL\gdal-data

Save the file as setPaths.bat and run this within the command prompt before running scripts.

8. Common issues

When trying “import gdal” or “import ogr” the ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found. error is most commonly caused by errors when adding GDALs install folder to the system Path variable – go back up to step 5 and triple check everything.

If you have any other problems please read through the comments (below), as they contain some solutions to other issues.

If you are doing Python development, you may be interested in my Windows Dev Stack, which describes my development environment from high level technologies down to specific apps, and how they all work together.