1.Download the Elasticsearch zip file from the following website:

       https://www.elastic.co/downloads/elasticsearch

  Note: If you are looking for an older version of ES, look here: https://www.elastic.co/downloads/past-releases

2. Unzip the file in your directory of choice. Having a dedicated dev folder not in Program Files is usually a good choice. (e.g. C:\dev\Apache\Elasticsearch)

3. Navigate to your Elasticsearch /bin either through the command line using Windows Explorer and typing cmd in the top bar.

       The directory should be similar to  C:\dev\app\Apache\Elasticsearch\elasticsearch-1.7.1\bin

4. Install the Mapper Attachments Plugin

This plugin is used to parse documents that are sent over from TeamConnect. It must be installed for documents to index properly. https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-mapper-attachments

5. Run the following command from the /bin:

        plugin -install elasticsearch/elasticsearch-mapper-attachments/2.7.0

          Note: The version number at the end corresponds to the main version of your ES install. If ES is 1.7.x, the plugin is 2.7.0. You can see the available versions here: https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-mapper-attachments

5. Install the ElasticHQ Plugin

This plugin is used to monitor Elasticsearch. http://www.elastichq.org/index.html

6. Run the following command from the /bin:

        plugin -install royrusso/elasticsearch-HQ

You can monitor the cluster by pointing your browser to:  domain:port/_plugin/HQ/

7. Configure properties as detailed in Elasticsearch Configuration.

Running Elasticsearch on Windows is fairly simple, just navigate to the bin directory of your Elasticsearch installation and start the elasticsearch.bat file.

Elasticsearch picks up your java path from your environment variables, so you'll have to add the JAVA_HOME variable pointed to java 1.7.

   In order to set the heap size for ES, you must define an environment variable for it.

1.        From the Start menu or Windows Explorer, right click on Computer and select Properties"

2.        From the left nav, select "Advanced System Settings".

3.        In System Properties, select "Environment Variables".

4.        Under "System variables", add a new variable with:

           name: ES_HEAP_SIZE

           value: 1g

5.          Select "OK" and "apply"