Installing Confluence on Windows from Zip File

In this guide we'll run you through installing Confluence in a production environment, with an external database, manually using a zip file.

This method gives you the most control of the installation process.

Other ways to install Confluence:

Evaluation - get your free trial up and running in no time.
Installer – install Confluence using the Windows installer.
Linux – install Confluence on a Linux operating system.

On this page:

Before you begin

Before you install Confluence, there's a few questions you need to answer.

Are you using a supported operating system and Java version?	Tell me more about this... Error rendering macro 'includeplus' User 'anonymous' does not have permission to view the page with ID 1077908845.
Do you want to run Confluence as a Windows Service?	Tell me more about this... Running Confluence as a service in Windows means that Confluence will automatically start up when Windows is started. You should use the Windows installer if you want to run Confluence as a Service. If you choose not to run Confluence as a service: You will start and stop Confluence by running the `start-confluence.bat` file in your Confluence installation directory. Confluence will be run as the Windows user account that was used to install Confluence, or you can choose to run as a dedicated user (this user must have full read and write access to the installation directory and home directory). Confluence will need to be restarted manually if your server is restarted.
Are ports 8090 and 8091 available?	Tell me more... Error rendering macro 'includeplus' User 'anonymous' does not have permission to view the page with ID 859451395.
What database do you plan to use?	Tell me more about this... Error rendering macro 'includeplus' User 'anonymous' does not have permission to view the page with ID 1044091858.
Do you have a Confluence license?	Tell me more about this... Error rendering macro 'includeplus' User 'anonymous' does not have permission to view the page with ID 1044091867.
Is your JRE_HOME variable set correctly?	Tell me more about this... Before you install Confluence, check that you're running a supported Java version and that the `JRE_HOME` (or `JAVA_HOME`) environment variable is set correctly. To check the JRE_HOME variable: Open a command prompt and type `echo %JRE_HOME%` and hit Enter. If you see a path to your Java installation directory, the `JRE_Home` environment variable has been set correctly. If nothing is displayed, or only `%JRE_HOME%` is returned, you'll need to set the `JRE_HOME` environment variable manually. See Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows for a step by step guide.

There’s a known issue during setup where a load balancer (or proxy) pings the server and breaks Confluence installation or migration to Data Center. See CONFSERVER-61189 - Getting issue details... STATUS
During installation, you need to disable load balancer health checks and make sure you don’t open multiple tabs that point to the same Confluence URL.

Install Confluence

1. Download Confluence

Download the zip file for your operating system – https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download.

2. Create the installation directory

Create your installation directory (with full control permission for the dedicated Windows administrator account you'll use to run Confluence) – this is where Confluence will be installed. Avoid using spaces or special characters in the path. We'll refer to this directory as your <installation-directory>.
Extract the Confluence zip file to your <installation-directory>. We recommend using 7zip or Winzip.

3. Create the home directory

Create your home directory (with full control permission) – this is where Confluence data like logs, search indexes and files will be stored. This should be seperate to your installation directory. We'll refer to this directory as your <home-directory>.
Edit <installation-directory>\confluence\WEB-INF\classes\confluence-init.properties.
At the bottom of the file, enter the path to your <home directory>.
Show me how to do this...
You can edit the confluence-init.properties file in Notepad or any other text editor.
1. Scroll to the bottom of the text and find this line:
  
  # confluence.home=c:/confluence/data
2. Remove the '#' and the space at the beginning of this line (so Confluence doesn't regard the line as a comment)
  
  confluence.home=c:/data/confluence-home
3. If you decide to use a different directory as the home directory you should:
  Avoid spaces in the directory path or file name.
  Use forward slashes '/' to define the path in this file.

4. Check the ports

By default Confluence listens on port 8090. If you have another application running on your server that uses the same ports, you'll need to tell Confluence to use a different port.

Show me how to do this...

To change the ports:

Edit <installation-directory>\conf\server.xml

Change the Server port (8000) and the Connector port (8090) to free ports on your server.

In the example below we've changed the Server port to 5000 and the Connector port to 5050.

Server port="5000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
  <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
    <Connector port="5050" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443"
        maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10"
        enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"
        protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" />

5. Start Confluence

Run <installation-directory>/bin/start-confluence.bat to start the install process. We recommend using a dedicated user account.

A command prompt will open. Closing this window will stop Confluence.
Go to http://localhost:8090/ to launch Confluence in your browser (change the port if you've updated the Connector port).

Trouble starting Confluence?

If the command prompt window closes immediately, your JAVA_HOME variable may not be set correctly. See Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows.
If you see an error, see Confluence does not start due to Spring Application context has not been set for troubleshooting options.