Installing RubyGems in Windows

Question

I'm new to ruby. I tried to install Ruby Gems on my PC by following the steps given in the site http://rubygems.org/pages/download.

I downloaded the package from the mentioned site, changed the directory to the directory in which the setup resides, and tried to run setup using the command setup.rb in command prompt.

But I get a window pop up that says "Windows can't open this file" and prompts me to select a program to open this file.

What should I do now? Let me know if I am doing something wrong.

Answer 1

To setup you Ruby development environment on Windows:

1. Install Ruby via RubyInstaller: http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/

2. Check your ruby version: Start - Run - type in cmd to open a windows console

3. Type in ruby -v
4. You will get something like that: ruby 2.0.0p353 (2013-11-22) [i386-mingw32]

For Ruby 2.4 or later, run the extra installation at the end to install the DevelopmentKit. If you forgot to do that, run ridk install in your windows console to install it.

For earlier versions:

5. Download and install DevelopmentKit from the same download page as Ruby Installer. Choose an ?exe file corresponding to your environment (32 bits or 64 bits and working with your version of Ruby).
6. Follow the installation instructions for DevelopmentKit described at: https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller/wiki/Development-Kit#installation-instructions. Adapt it for Windows.
7. After installing DevelopmentKit you can install all needed gems by just running from the command prompt (windows console or terminal): gem install {gem name}. For example, to install rails, just run gem install rails.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I recommend you just use rubyinstaller

It is recommended by the official Ruby page - see https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/

Ways of Installing Ruby

We have several tools on each major platform to install Ruby:

• On Linux/UNIX, you can use the package management system of your distribution or third-party tools (rbenv and RVM).
• On OS X machines, you can use third-party tools (rbenv and RVM).
• On Windows machines, you can use RubyInstaller.

Answer 3

Use chocolatey in PowerShell

choco install ruby -y
refreshenv
gem install bundler

Answer 4

Installing Ruby

Go to http://rubyinstaller.org/downloads/

Make sure that you check "Add ruby ... to your PATH".

Now you can use "ruby" in your "cmd".

If you installed ruby 1.9.3 I expect that the ruby is downloaded in C:\Ruby193.

Installing Gem

install Development Kit in rubyinstaller. Make new folder such as C:\RubyDevKit and unzip.

Go to the devkit directory and type ruby dk.rb init to generate config.yml.

If you installed devkit for 1.9.3, I expect that the config.yml will be written as C:\Ruby193.

If not, please correct path to your ruby folders.

After reviewing the config.yml, you can finally type ruby dk.rb install.

Now you can use "gem" in your "cmd". It's done!

Answer 5

Another way is to let chocolatey manage your ruby package (and any other package), that way you won't have to put ruby in your path manually:

Install chocolatey first by opening your favourite command prompt and executing:

@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin

then all you need to do is type

cinst ruby

In your command prompt and the package installs.

Using a package manager provides overall more control, I'd recommend this for every package that can be installed via chocolatey.

Answer 6

I use scoop as command-liner installer for Windows... scoop rocks!
The quick answer (use PowerShell):

PS C:\Users\myuser> scoop install ruby

---

Longer answer:

Just searching for ruby:

PS C:\Users\myuser> scoop search ruby
'main' bucket:
    jruby (9.2.7.0)
    ruby (2.6.3-1)

'versions' bucket:
    ruby19 (1.9.3-p551)
    ruby24 (2.4.6-1)
    ruby25 (2.5.5-1)

Check the installation info :

PS C:\Users\myuser> scoop info ruby
Name: ruby
Version: 2.6.3-1
Website: https://rubyinstaller.org
Manifest:
  C:\Users\myuser\scoop\buckets\main\bucket\ruby.json
Installed: No
Environment: (simulated)
  GEM_HOME=C:\Users\myuser\scoop\apps\ruby\current\gems
  GEM_PATH=C:\Users\myuser\scoop\apps\ruby\current\gems
  PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\myuser\scoop\apps\ruby\current\bin
  PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\myuser\scoop\apps\ruby\current\gems\bin

Output from installation:

PS C:\Users\myuser> scoop install ruby
Updating Scoop...
Updating 'extras' bucket...
Installing 'ruby' (2.6.3-1) [64bit]
rubyinstaller-2.6.3-1-x64.7z (10.3 MB) [============================= ... ===========] 100%
Checking hash of rubyinstaller-2.6.3-1-x64.7z ... ok.
Extracting rubyinstaller-2.6.3-1-x64.7z ... done.
Linking ~\scoop\apps\ruby\current => ~\scoop\apps\ruby\2.6.3-1
Persisting gems
Running post-install script...
Fetching rake-12.3.3.gem
Successfully installed rake-12.3.3
Parsing documentation for rake-12.3.3
Installing ri documentation for rake-12.3.3
Done installing documentation for rake after 1 seconds
1 gem installed
'ruby' (2.6.3-1) was installed successfully!
Notes
-----
Install MSYS2 via 'scoop install msys2' and then run 'ridk install' to install the toolchain!
'ruby' suggests installing 'msys2'.
PS C:\Users\myuser>

Answer 7

Check that ruby interpreter is already installed and try "ruby setup.rb" in command prompt.