Installing Lando on Windows

Submitted by RoloDMonkey on 2018, November 7 - 08:54

Installing Lando on a Windows machine is easy. Just follow these 30 (or more) simple steps:

  1. Review the directions.
  2. Figure out which version of Windows you are running.
  3. Realize that you need to upgrade to Windows 10 Professional, because apparently you have to pay extra to actually do work on a Windows machine.
  4. Open the Windows Store.
  5. Spend half an hour trying to figure out why the Windows store is only showing blank pages.
  6. Take a break, go vote, spend some time with your kids, and seriously consider buying a Mac so that you don't have to deal with this shit.
  7. Reboot your computer and finally get Windows store to respond.
  8. Pay $100 dollars, while updating your account information because everything is three years out-of-date. Do not pass Go.
  9. Reboot your computer twice.
  10. Go to the Lando releases page.
  11. Spend some time looking for the last stable release (note: there is no spoon stable release).
  12. Download and run the latest .exe.
  13. The installer will complain that you don't have Hyper V, which you just paid for.
  14. Find the obscure command you need to enable Hyper V.
  15. Find Powershell in the Start menu.
  16. Discover that you can paste into PowerShell just by right-clicking your mouse. This seems convenient, but it's a trap!
  17. Run the command. It doesn't work.
  18. Learn how to run PowerShell as an administrator.
  19. Run the command, again.
  20. Reboot your computer, again.
  21. Run the .exe, again.
  22. The installer wants to install Docker. Let it.
  23. The Docker installer wants you to log you out. Let it
  24. Log back in.
  25. Open Babun and try the lando command. It isn't found.
  26. Open Powershell and try the lando command. It isn't found.
  27. Open the Command Prompt and try the lando command. It isn't found.
  28. Re-run the Lando installer, for the third time. It turns out that it never finished because Docker logged you out.
  29. Open Powershell and try the lando command.
  30. It works! Congratulations, you are done!*

* Just kidding...

  1. Open PowerShell. Go to the directory where you have your Drupal site.
  2. Run lando init.
  3. Choose the drupal 7 recipe.
  4. Why is it asking for a Pantheon machine token? This isn't a Pantheon site! Hit Ctrl-C.
  5. Log into Pantheon, create a machine token for your Windows machine. note: Terminus and Lando are notorious for asking for this machine token over and over, so make sure to paste this machine token into a file somewhere, which kind of defeats the entire point of having a machine token.
  6. Run lando init, again.
  7. Right clicking to paste doesn't work for the hidden machine token. So, learn a different way to paste the machine token into PowerShell.
  8. Congratulations, you are done!**

** Just kidding...

  1. Run lando start. Your terminal will proceed to spew error messages for several minutes.
  2. Spend an hour searching through the Lando issue queue trying to find the magic sequence that will fix these errors.
  3. Go apple.com and start comparing the new MacBook Air to the new Mac Mini. Figure out if you can afford either one so that you don't have to deal with this shit.
  4. Your kids are picking up on your frustration, and everyone is melting down because it is bedtime (and your are anxious about the election).
  5. Give up for the night, and obsessively refresh the election results at fivethirtyeight.com until the results are clear at 11:00 PM.
  6. Get up the next morning and write a satirical article about installing Lando on your Windows machine.

I will let you know if I ever actually get it working.

Update November 19, 2018

I was finally able to get Lando working. Here is what I did:

  1. Deleted the "hidden" directory at ~\.lando.
  2. Uninstalled Docker and Lando with the Windows control panel.
  3. Downloaded and ran the latest version of Lando for Windows, which was lando-v3.0.0-rc.1.exe at the time I was writing this.
  4. The Lando installer also installed Docker, but Docker did not ask to log out this time. Also, Docker asked to install a newer version, which I did not allow.
  5. After a sucessful install, I used Powershell to navigate to the directory where I had my Drupal files.
  6. I removed the old version of .lando.yml.
  7. I ran lando init, chose the Drupal 7 recipe, and provided the Pantheon machine token. I knew I was going to need to keep that!
  8. I ran lando start.
  9. During the start, Docker asked for permisson to "share" with the C: drive, which I granted. I don't remember having to do that before, but I might have forgotten.
  10. Also, during the start Windows Defender asked what to do about a Docker sub-program that wanted internet access. I definitely don't remember that. So, I gave it permission on both private and public networks, since I suspect that it was crucial and I am on public networks somewhat regularly.
  11. The command ran cleanly, and the site responded in a browser. So, I am finally done. No kidding

Update January 2, 2019

I continue to have problems when starting Lando, especially when switching from project to project. However, I have found that right-clicking on the Docker icon in the Taskbar and choosing Restart... clears up the errors. So, I recommend trying this first before nuking your entire setup.

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