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On Windows

docs/get-started/install/windows.md

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(jina-on-windows)=

On Windows

You can install and use Jina-serve on Windows.

However, Jina-serve is built keeping *nix-based platforms in mind, and the upstream libraries that Jina-serve depends on also follow the similar ideology. Hence, there are some caveats when running Jina-serve on Windows. If you face additional issues, please let us know.

{caution}
There can be a significant performance impact while running Jina on Windows. You may not want to use it in production.
{tip}
Alternatively, you can use the Windows Subsystem for Linux for better compatibility. Check the official guide [here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install).
Make sure you install WSL**2**.
Once done, you can install Jina as on a native *nix platform.

Known issues

multiprocessing spawn

Jina-serve relies heavily on multiprocessing to enable scaling and distribution. Windows only supports spawn start method for multiprocessing, which has a several caveats.

{ref}Please follow the guidelines here.<multiprocessing-spawn>

Compatibility of Executors in the Hub

We've added preliminary support for using Executors listed in the Hub portal. Note that, these Executors are based on *nix OS and might not be compatible to run natively on Windows. Containers that are built on Windows are not yet supported.

{seealso}
[Install Docker Desktop on Windows](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/windows/install/)

UnicodeEncodeError on Jina-serve CLI

UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\u25ae' in position : character maps to <undefined>

Set environment variable PYTHONIOENCODING='utf-8' before starting your Python script.