Since you downloaded the (the zip) rather than an installer, you must "make" the IDE.
: Do not extract it to C:\Program Files on Windows, as restricted permissions can break the build process. Use a path like C:\Lazarus\ or your home directory instead. Install Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) :
: Keep the installation path free of spaces (e.g., use C:\Development\Lazarus instead of C:\My Projects\Lazarus ) to avoid confusing older build tools. Lazarus-main.zip
Open a terminal/command prompt in the extracted folder and run: make clean all :
: If you intend to contribute to the Lazarus project itself, you need the source code from the main branch. Since you downloaded the (the zip) rather than
Lazarus is the IDE, but it requires the Free Pascal Compiler to actually build programs.
Ensure FPC is installed and added to your system's PATH variable so Lazarus can find it. : Install Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) : : Keep
: Running from a zip allows you to have multiple versions of Lazarus on the same machine without them interfering with each other.