How to use Claude Code on Windows in 2026: 7 ways compared

Disclosure: Enjoy is our product. We checked every way below against its maker’s own pages on November 9, 2026, and we say where another way is the better pick, including the free ones that don’t need Enjoy.

Ways to use Claude Code on Windows, compared

Claude Code runs on a PC without Linux. Anthropic’s setup page says “You can run Claude Code natively on Windows or inside WSL,” the Windows Subsystem for Linux, and it lists “Windows 10 1809+ or Windows Server 2019+” with “4 GB+ RAM, x64 or ARM64 processor.” Where it runs is the first choice, and how you talk to it, a terminal, a window or a browser, is the second.

Way	Best for	Price, checked November 9, 2026	Where Claude Code runs	You use it in
Native install	Windows projects and tools	A Claude plan: Pro is $20 a month	Windows, without a sandbox	PowerShell or CMD
WSL 2	Linux toolchains and the sandbox	The same plans; WSL is free	A Linux distribution on your PC	The distribution’s terminal
Claude’s desktop app	A window instead of a terminal	Included in Pro, Max ($100), Ultra ($200), Team and Enterprise	Windows, WSL 2, the cloud, or over SSH	The app’s Code tab
Claude Code for VS Code	Staying in your editor	Included in the same plans	Windows, or the WSL system a window is connected to	A panel in VS Code or Cursor
Cloud sessions	Nothing to install, and work that keeps going	Pro, Max, Ultra and Team, within your limits	Anthropic’s cloud	Your browser
Enjoy	Claude Code beside other labs’ agents	A monthly subscription, free for 7 days (pricing)	Windows, or WSL 2 for projects inside it	Enjoy’s window
Orca	Many agents side by side, free	Free	Windows, or a machine over SSH	Orca’s window

Prices are per month as each maker lists them, before tax. Claude Code itself needs “a Pro, Max, Ultra, Team, Enterprise, or Console account,” Anthropic says, and “The free claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code access.” Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly, on Claude’s pricing page. Enjoy and Orca run Claude Code on that same plan.

First, choose: native Windows or WSL 2

Anthropic’s setup page puts the choice in a table. Native Windows requires “None,” doesn’t support sandboxing, and is for “Windows-native projects and tools.” WSL 2 requires “WSL 2 enabled,” supports sandboxing, and is for “Linux toolchains or sandboxed command execution.” WSL 1, without the sandbox, is only “If WSL 2 is unavailable.”

The sandbox is the deciding difference for many people. Its docs say “The sandbox runs on macOS, Linux, and WSL2. On native Windows, Claude Code runs commands unsandboxed.” The other is where your files are. A project kept inside the distribution, such as /home/you/app, should run there, because working on those files from Windows “goes through a network filesystem, which is slow and breaks file watching,” Anthropic says. A project on your C: drive with Windows tools belongs on Windows.

Native, in PowerShell or CMD

Best for: most people, and every project built with Windows tools.

The installer Anthropic marks “Recommended” is one line. In PowerShell:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

In CMD, it’s curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd. “You do not need to run as Administrator.” When it finishes, open a new terminal, run claude --version, then run claude in your project and sign in in your browser. WinGet works too, with winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode, but “WinGet installations do not auto-update,” where the native install updates itself “in the background.”

Install Git for Windows as well. Anthropic says it “is recommended on native Windows so Claude Code can use the Bash tool. If Git for Windows is not installed, Claude Code uses PowerShell as the shell tool instead.”

Two Windows errors have their own fixes on Anthropic’s troubleshooting page. If Windows says claude “is not recognized,” the installer put it at %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin\claude.exe and that folder isn’t on your PATH yet; the page gives the PowerShell commands that add it. And if the installer says “Claude Code does not support 32-bit Windows” on a 64-bit PC, you opened Windows PowerShell (x86), which “runs as a 32-bit process and triggers this error even on a 64-bit machine.”

Price: the Claude plan, from Pro at $20 a month.

Watch for: no sandbox. By default, when the platform doesn’t support it, “Claude Code runs commands without sandboxing,” Anthropic says; set sandbox.failIfUnavailable to true to make it exit at startup instead. Without Git for Windows, you also lose the Monitor tool, which needs Git Bash like the Bash tool does.

In WSL 2

Best for: projects that need Linux tools, and anyone who wants Claude Code’s sandbox on a PC.

Microsoft’s install page says to “Open PowerShell in administrator mode,” run wsl --install, “then restart your machine.” It needs “Windows 10 version 2004 and higher (Build 19041 and higher) or Windows 11,” installs Ubuntu unless you choose another distribution, and new distributions “will be set to WSL 2 by default.” Then, in the distribution’s terminal, run Anthropic’s Linux installer, curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash. “You install and launch claude inside the WSL terminal, not from PowerShell or CMD,” and “WSL setups do not need Git for Windows.” The sandbox there “uses bubblewrap, same as Linux.”

If signing in opens a browser that then can’t reach a localhost address, Anthropic says to copy the login URL instead: the browser “then shows a code instead of returning to localhost,” and you paste it into the terminal.

Price: WSL is part of Windows. Claude Code needs the same plans.

Watch for: WSL 1. Running claude there can fail with “cannot execute binary file: Exec format error,” a “known native-binary regression.” Convert the distribution with wsl --set-version <DistroName> 2.

Claude’s desktop app, in its Code tab

Best for: a window instead of a terminal, on Windows or in WSL, from Anthropic itself.

“The desktop app gives you Claude Code with a graphical interface,” and “you don’t need to install Node.js or the CLI to use the Code tab,” Anthropic’s quickstart says. The Windows download is “For x64 processors,” with a separate ARM64 installer. Each session picks where it runs: Local, on your PC; WSL, “inside a WSL 2 distribution on your machine”; Cloud, which keeps going “even if you close the app”; or SSH, on another machine. In a WSL session, “Parallel sessions, side chats, visual diff review, branch and pull request status, and worktrees all work.”

Price: included in every paid plan: Pro at $20 a month, or $17 billed yearly, Max at $100, Ultra at $200, Team and Enterprise.

Watch for: WSL sessions need “Windows 10 or 11 with WSL 2. WSL 1 isn’t supported,” plus git inside the distribution. In them, plugins are “not available in WSL sessions,” you can view files in the file pane “but can’t edit them there,” and the terminal and connectors may be missing. On Windows, “Desktop doesn’t read PowerShell profiles, so set PATH in your user or system environment variables.” It runs only Claude.

Claude Code for VS Code

Best for: people who already work in VS Code or Cursor.

“The VS Code extension provides a native graphical interface for Claude Code, integrated directly into your IDE,” Anthropic’s docs say. Press Ctrl+Shift+X, search for “Claude Code” and install it; it needs “VS Code 1.94.0 or later.” It works in remote windows too: in a window connected to WSL, Anthropic says its settings live “on that system, not on your local computer.”

Price: included in the same plans. Anthropic says “any paid Claude subscription (Pro, Max, Ultra, Team, or Enterprise) or a Claude Console account works, and no API key is required.”

Watch for: “Some features are only available in the CLI,” and “Installing the extension does not put claude on your shell PATH,” so install the CLI too if you want it in the terminal. Anthropic adds that “Extension marketplaces are third-party software, which Anthropic doesn’t endorse, maintain, or audit.” In October, tampered copies of this extension reached Cursor’s marketplace for about 11 hours.

Cloud sessions, in your browser

Best for: trying Claude Code without installing anything, or work that should keep going after you shut the laptop.

“A cloud session is a Claude Code session that runs on cloud infrastructure instead of on your machine,” Anthropic’s cloud docs say. You start one at claude.ai/code, in the desktop app, or with claude --cloud in your terminal, and it “keeps running after you close your laptop.”

Price: “Cloud sessions are available on Pro, Max, Ultra, and Team plans,” and for some Enterprise seats. Each “counts toward your plan’s usage limits,” and “there’s no separate charge for the cloud VM.”

Watch for: “repository cloning in Anthropic-hosted environments and pull request creation require GitHub.” When a repository has no Git remote, or the Claude GitHub App isn’t installed on it, claude --cloud uploads your local copy instead, and Windows differs here: on macOS, Linux and WSL it leaves uncommitted changes to files such as .env out, but on native Windows “uncommitted changes to tracked files upload as they are, whatever the file’s name.”

Enjoy

Best for: Claude Code beside other labs’ agents on a PC, in Windows projects and ones inside WSL, without a terminal.

Enjoy runs Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build, Antigravity, Muse Code, and local models through OpenCode, on Windows, Mac and Linux, on the plans you already have. It installs Claude Code for you from Anthropic’s official installer, “without administrator access,” and signs it in through your browser. On Windows:

• Projects inside WSL. Open a folder in a WSL 2 distribution, and Enjoy runs everything for it there: “Git, your agents, and the programs they start.” It installs each agent there with the agent’s official Linux installer, and signs it in there.
• Switch agents mid-conversation. When Claude is the wrong fit or out of usage, Codex or another agent picks up the same conversation.
• Keep going through limits. When Claude Code runs out, Enjoy switches to another of your accounts that still has usage, or waits for the limit to reset, then continues.
• Your phone and any browser. The same conversations, while your PC is on with Enjoy open.

Price: Enjoy is one monthly subscription, and the first seven days are free, with a card to start. It includes your phone and any browser and one computer; each other computer is $9.99 a month, and each teammate you invite needs a subscription of their own. See pricing.

Watch for: Enjoy isn’t open source, and it’s a monthly subscription on top of your Claude plan once the free week ends. Its install guide asks for “a Windows PC with a 64-bit (x64) processor,” and in WSL it needs WSL 2.0.0 or later and Git 2.34 or later in the distribution; “distributions for Arm processors” aren’t supported. Your tools “don’t run in projects inside WSL yet.” Scheduled workflows run only while your computer is awake with Enjoy open.

Orca

Best for: many agents side by side, free and open source.

Orca, from Stably AI, says “Run Claude Code, Codex, and any other coding agent in parallel, each in its own worktree.” It’s “Free and open source for macOS, Windows, and Linux,” under the MIT license on GitHub, and it shows “how much of your Claude, Codex, and Grok limits you’ve used and when they reset,” with account switching “without logging out.”

Price: free. Your Claude plan pays for Claude Code.

Watch for: its ways to run page covers SSH hosts and cloud machines but doesn’t say how Orca handles projects inside WSL, so check before you point it at a Linux-side project. For more free apps on a PC, such as T3 Code and Paseo, see our Windows guide.

When to stay with the terminal

If claude already works in PowerShell or WSL, you don’t need anything else. The native install keeps itself updated, the CLI has features the extension doesn’t, and Anthropic’s desktop app covers a window, worktrees and WSL at no extra cost. Add an app when you want several sessions you can see at once, diffs to review, or other labs’ agents in the same place, and pick WSL 2 over native Windows only when your project or the sandbox needs Linux.

How we compared

We read Anthropic’s Claude Code pages on setup, installation troubleshooting, sandboxing, the desktop app and its WSL sessions, VS Code and cloud sessions, Claude’s pricing, Microsoft’s WSL install guide, Orca’s homepage, docs and GitHub page, and Enjoy’s own help on November 9, 2026, and every one is linked below. We quote each maker’s own words for its limits and leave out what it hasn’t documented. These apps change weekly, so we recheck this guide against its sources at least once a month, and the date at the foot of the page says when we last did.