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+Building Tahoe-LAFS on Windows
+==============================
+
+You'll need `python`, `pip`, and `virtualenv`. But you won't need a compiler.
+
+Preliminaries
+-------------
+
+1: Install Python-2.7.10 . Use the "Windows x86-64 MSI installer" at https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2711/
+
+2: That should install `pip`, but if it doesn't, look at https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installing/ for installation instructions.
+
+3: Install `virtualenv` with https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/latest/installation.html
+
+Installation
+------------
+
+1: Start a CLI shell
+
+2: Create a new virtualenv. Everything specific to Tahoe will go into this. You can use whatever name you like for the virtualenv, but example uses "tahoe".
+
+    PS C:\Users\me> virtualenv tahoe
+    New python executable in C:\Users\me\tahoe\Scripts\python.exe
+    Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
+    >
+
+3: Activate the new virtualenv. This puts the virtualenv's `Scripts` directory on your PATH, allowing you to run commands that are installed there. The command prompt will change to include `(tahoe)` as a reminder that you've activated the "tahoe" virtualenv
+
+    PS C:\Users\me> .\tahoe\Scripts\activate
+    (tahoe) PS C:\Users\me>
+
+4: Use `pip` to install the latest release of Tahoe-LAFS into this virtualenv:
+
+    (tahoe) PS C:\Users\me> pip install --find-links=https://tahoe-lafs.org/deps/ tahoe-lafs
+    Collecting tahoe-lafs
+    ...
+    Installing collected packages: ...
+    Successfully installed ...
+    (tahoe) PS C:\Users\me>
+
+5: Verify that Tahoe was installed correctly by running `tahoe --version`:
+
+    (tahoe) PS C:\Users\me> tahoe --version
+    tahoe-lafs: 1.11
+    foolscap: ...
+
+Running Tahoe-LAFS
+------------------
+
+The rest of the documentation assumes you can run the `tahoe` executable just as you did in step 5 above. If you start a new shell (say, the next time your boot your computer), you'll need to re-activate the virtualenv as you did in step 3.
+
+Now use the docs in `running.rst`_ to learn how to configure your first Tahoe node.
+
+Installing A Different Version
+------------------------------
+
+The `pip install tahoe-lafs` command above will install the latest release (from PyPI). If instead, you want to install from a git checkout, then run the following command (in an activated virtualenv, from the root of your git checkout):
+
+
+    $ (tahoe) pip install --find-links=https://tahoe-lafs.org/deps/ .
+
+If you're planning to hack on the source code, you might want to add `--editable` so you won't have to re-install each time you make a change.
+
+Dependencies
+------------
+
+Tahoe-LAFS depends upon several packages that use compiled C code, such as zfec, pycryptopp, and others. This code must be built separately for each platform (Windows, OS-X, and different flavors of Linux).
+
+Pre-compiled "wheels" of all Tahoe's dependencies are hosted on the tahoe-lafs.org website in the `deps/` directory. The `--find-links=` argument (used in the examples above) instructs `pip` to look at that URL for dependencies. This should avoid the need for anything to be compiled during the install.