WPILib Installation Guide

This guide is intended for Java and C++ teams. LabVIEW teams can skip to Installing LabVIEW for FRC (LabVIEW only). Additionally, the below tutorial shows Windows 10, but the steps are identical for all operating systems. Notes differentiating operating systems will be shown.

Prerequisites

Supported Operating Systems and Architectures:

• Windows 10 & 11, 64 bit only. 32 bit and Arm are not supported

• Ubuntu 22.04, 64 bit. Other Linux distributions with glibc >= 2.34 may work, but are unsupported

• macOS 11 or higher, both Intel and Arm.

Warning

The following OSes are no longer supported: macOS 10.15, Ubuntu 18.04 & 20.04, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and any 32-bit Windows.

WPILib is designed to install to different folders for different years, so that it is not necessary to uninstall a previous version before installing this year’s WPILib.

Downloading

WPILib Installer

WPILib 2023.4.2 Release - February 25, 2023

Downloads

Downloads for other platforms

Release Notes

This is an update release of WPILib for the 2023 season. This release reduces overhead that can impact loop times in Java, and has several other quality-of-life improvements. Note: while this release only has a few changes since 2023.4.2, it includes all fixes made in earlier releases; it's strongly recommended teams upgrade if running versions earlier than 2023.4.1.

Upgrading from earlier 2023 releases is easy: simply download and run the new installer and it will update your current installation. If you already have the 2023 WPILib vscode installed, it will detect it and you can simply click "next" for that installation step. After installation, vscode will prompt you when opening your robot project whether you want to upgrade it to this version. Note that using the installer is required to get the new version of desktop tools such as Shuffleboard.

The documentation for WPILib is located at https://docs.wpilib.org/ (if you have trouble accessing this location, https://frcdocs.wpi.edu/en/stable/ is an alternate location with the same content).

If you're new to FRC, start with Getting Started.

Minimum system requirements have changed for 2023. WPILib requires 64-bit Windows 10 or 11, Ubuntu 22.04, or macOS 11 or higher. Newly supported this year is Apple Silicon (arm64)! C++ teams should note that Visual Studio 2022 is now required for desktop builds. For this release, Mac users will need to have the Xcode Command Line Tools installed before running the installer; we are working on removing this requirement in a future release. This can be done by running xcode-select --install in the Terminal.

If you're returning from a previous season, check out what's new for 2023; be sure to read through this, as a lot has changed from 2022! You will need a new RoboRIO image for 2023; this is available via the FRC 2023 Game Tools. Follow the WPILib installation guide to install WPILib.

If you're starting from a 2022 robot project, you will need to import your project to create a 2023 project. The import process is important, as it will make a number of automated corrections for some breaking changes that happened in 2023. It is also necessary to import vendor libraries again, since last year’s vendor libraries must be updated to be compatible with this year’s projects.

A complete list of known issues with this release can be found here.

WPILib is developed by a small team of volunteers and the FIRST community.

What's Changed since 2022.4.1

WPILib

• Fix HAL_GetRuntimeType being slow on the roboRIO by @ThadHouse in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5130

Simulation

• DutyCycleEncoderSim: Add constructor that takes channel number by @rzblue in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5118
• Fix REV PH solenoids 8+ simulation by @superpenguin612 in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5132
• Fix DataLogManager crash on exit in simulation by @gaborszita in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5125

Commands

• Add default command removal method to Subsystem by @democat3457 in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5064

Docs

• Strip path from generated NT docs by @sciencewhiz in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5119
• Fix XboxController::GetBackButton doc by @auscompgeek in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5131

SysId

• Fix inversion checkbox showing up on built in Spark MAX and TalonFX encoder settings by @rzblue in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/sysid/pull/491
• Handle case where robot enables before SysId connects by @calcmogul in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/sysid/pull/493

Shuffleboard

• FmsInfo: Don't throw on missing data by @Starlight220 in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/shuffleboard/pull/766

GradleRIO

• Don't configure SmartDashboard as a tool on mac arm by @ThadHouse in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/GradleRIO/pull/650

New Contributors

• @gaborszita made their first contribution in https://github.com/wpilibsuite/allwpilib/pull/5125

MD5 Hashes

07b5c5142eaad9f5c33ba7ac1dc53161 WPILib_Linux-2023.4.2.tar.gz
1072aff0a9c3af3b4da5f0915c0dc9a2 WPILib_Windows-2023.4.2.iso
4f9a57c8bd836fc86e84d10faa83b0c9 WPILib_macOS-Intel-2023.4.2.dmg
3a43345cf59ee7ab9ff2bc2090b1db34 WPILib_macOS-Arm64-2023.4.2.dmg

SHA256 Hashes

9c3804de5c6e15a2732aefde129512e93f3681bd3ffbb5a6cf34efdd05c0334e WPILib_Linux-2023.4.2.tar.gz
55bd46d63a2213f27b92fd8e9f214157de1f5f9144ad5fabee32f6f4d4359d25 WPILib_Windows-2023.4.2.iso
a9a029dde0cc5e293251652f0d77015a9290f1cc5d07d80d4d7e25ea7629f492 WPILib_macOS-Intel-2023.4.2.dmg
8c58136596fad4502f3c6b4c8fcfca86ac131bc9123350b282217b0381193dba WPILib_macOS-Arm64-2023.4.2.dmg

You can download the latest release of the installer from GitHub.

Once on the GitHub releases page, scroll to the assets section at the bottom of the page.

Then click on the correct binary for your OS and architecture to begin the download.

Extracting the Installer

When you download the WPILib installer, it is distributed as a disk image file .iso for Windows, .tar.gz for Linux, and distributed as a DMG for MacOS.

Windows 10+macOSLinux

Windows 10+ users can right click on the downloaded disk image and select Mount to open it. Then launch WPILibInstaller.exe.

Note

Other installed programs may associate with iso files and the mount option may not appear. If that software does not give the option to mount or extract the iso file, then follow the directions below.

You can use 7-zip to extract the disk image by right-clicking, selecting 7-Zip and selecting Extract to…. Windows 11 users may need to select Show more options at the bottom of the context menu.

After opening the .iso file, launch the installer by opening WPILibInstaller.exe.

Note

After launching the installer, Windows may display a window titled “Windows protected your PC”. Click More info, then select Run anyway to run the installer.

Running the Installer

Upon opening the installer, you’ll be presented with the below screen. Go ahead and press Start.

This showcases a list of options included with the WPILib installation.

• Tools Only installs just the WPILib tools (Pathweaver, Shuffleboard, RobotBuilder, SysID, Glass, and OutlineViewer) and JDK.

• Everything installs the full development environment (VS Code, extensions, all dependencies), WPILib tools, and JDK.

You will notice two buttons, Install for this User and Install for all Users. Install for this User only installs it on the current user account, and does not require administrator privileges. However, Install for all Users installs the tools for all system accounts and will require administrator access. Install for all Users is not an option for macOS and Linux.

Note

If you select Install for all Users, Windows will prompt for administrator access through UAC during installation.

Select the option that is appropriate for you, and you’ll presented with the following installation screen.

This next screen involves downloading VS Code. Unfortunately, due to licensing reasons, VS Code can not be bundled with the installer.

• Download for this computer only

  • This downloads VS Code only for the current platform, which is also the smallest download.

• Skip and don’t use VS Code

  • Skips installing VS Code. Useful for advanced installations or configurations. Generally not recommended.

• Select existing VS Code zip for offline install on this computer

  • Selecting this option will bring up a prompt allowing you to select a pre-existing zip file of VS Code that has been downloaded by the installer previously. This option does not let you select an already installed copy of VS Code on your machine.

• Create VS Code zip to share with other computers/OSes for offline install

  • This option downloads and saves a copy of VS Code for all platforms, which is useful for sharing the copy of the installer.

Go ahead and select Download for this computer only. This will begin the download process and can take a bit depending on internet connectivity (it’s ~100MB). Once the download is done, select Next. You should be presented with a screen that looks similar to the one below.

After installation is complete, you will be presented with the finished screen.

Important

WPILib installs a separate version of VS Code. It does not use an already existing installation. Each year has it’s own copy of the tools appended with the year. IE: WPILib VS Code 2022. Please launch the WPILib VS Code and not a system installed copy!

Congratulations, the WPILib development environment and tooling is now installed on your computer! Press Finish to exit the installer.

Post-Installation

Some operating systems require some final action to complete installation.

macOSLinux

After installation, the installer opens the WPILib VS Code folder. Drag the VS Code application to the dock. Eject WPILibInstaller image from the desktop.

Note

Installing desktop tools and rebooting will create a folder on the desktop called YYYY WPILib Tools, where YYYY is the current year. Desktop tool shortcuts are not available on Linux and macOS.

Additional C++ Installation for Simulation

C++ robot simulation requires that a native compiler to be installed. For Windows, this would be Visual Studio 2022 (not VS Code), macOS requires Xcode 13 or later, and Linux (Ubuntu) requires the build-essential package.

Ensure the Desktop Development with C++ option is checked in the Visual Studio installer for simulation support.

What is Installed?

The Offline Installer installs the following components:

• Visual Studio Code - The supported IDE for 2019 and later robot code development. The offline installer sets up a separate copy of VS Code for WPILib development, even if you already have VS Code on your machine. This is done because some of the settings that make the WPILib setup work may break existing workflows if you use VS Code for other projects.

• C++ Compiler - The toolchains for building C++ code for the roboRIO

• Gradle - The specific version of Gradle used for building/deploying C++ or Java robot code

• Java JDK/JRE - A specific version of the Java JDK/JRE that is used to build Java robot code and to run any of the Java based Tools (Dashboards, etc.). This exists side by side with any existing JDK installs and does not overwrite the JAVA_HOME variable

• WPILib Tools - SmartDashboard, Shuffleboard, RobotBuilder, Outline Viewer, Pathweaver, Glass, SysID

• WPILib Dependencies - OpenCV, etc.

• VS Code Extensions - WPILib extensions for robot code development in VS Code

Uninstalling

WPILib is designed to install to different folders for different years, so that it is not necessary to uninstall a previous version before installing this year’s WPILib. However, the following instructions can be used to uninstall WPILib if desired.

WindowsmacOSLinux

1. Delete the appropriate wpilib folder (c:\Users\Public\wpilib\YYYY where YYYY is the year to uninstall)

2. Delete the desktop icons at C:\Users\Public\Public Desktop

3. Delete the path environment variables.

   1. In the start menu, type environment and select “edit the system environment variables”

   2. Click on the environment variables button (1).

   3. In the user variables, select path (2) and then click on edit (3).

   4. Select the path with roborio\bin (4) and click on delete (5).

   5. Select the path with frccode and click on delete (5).

   6. Repeat steps 3-6 in the Systems Variable pane.

Troubleshooting

In case the installer fails, please open an issue on the installer repository. A link is available here. The installer should give a message on the cause of the error, please include this in the description of your issue.