---

title: "Windows-Specific Questions"

date: 2019-05-19T13:47:02-04:00

Yes! If the installer isn't able to successfully download and install the dictionaries, you can do so manually.

First, upgrade to the newest release if you aren't on it!

Pidgin on Windows uses the dictionaries available from the [OpenOffice.org Extensions Download Site](http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/search?f%5B0%5D=field_project_tags%3A157). You need to download the appropriate language extension file(s). These files are OpenOffice.org extensions named with a file extension of `.oxt`; these are simply ZIP files with some extra data in them. Once you have downloaded one of these files, you can rename it to have a `.zip` extension and then extract the `*.dic` and `*.aff` files in it. These files need to be placed into `%PIDGIN_INSTALL_DIR%\spellcheck\share\enchant\myspell\`. Create the directories if they don't already exist. (`%PIDGIN_INSTALL_DIR%` is _usually_ `C:\Program Files (x86)\Pidgin` or `C:\Program Files\Pidgin`.) If Pidgin is already running when you place the dictionary files, you will need to restart Pidgin for it to recognize the files.

Absolutely! The [_Offline_ Pidgin installer](https://www.pidgin.im/download/windows/) has a "silent" mode accessed with the following syntax:

pidgin-x.y.z-offline.exe /DS=1 /SMS=0 /L=1033 /S /D=C:\Pidgin

The `/S` flag activates the silent mode for the installer. The `/L` flag specifies the language using Windows LCID, and this affects both the installer and Pidgin itself. The `/DS` and `/SMS` flags enable (`=1`) or disable (`=0`) the desktop shortcut and Start menu shortcuts, respectively. The `/D` flag specifies the installation directory. If you wish to use this flag, it _must_ be the last argument specified on the command line and may not contain any quotes, even if the installation path includes spaces. All flags are optional, except `/S` if silent mode is desired. Omitting the other flags will default to LCID 1033 (English), with Desktop and Start menu shortcuts enabled, and a default install path of `%PROGRAMFILESx86%\Pidgin\` or `%PROGRAMFILES%\Pidgin` depending on your version of Windows.

The installer will, if necessary, download and install the GTK runtime, which is needed for Pidgin to run. If you need to use a proxy server to connect to the Internet, it is possible that the Pidgin installer will not be able to reach the resources it needs. The installer automatically checks for proxies configured in Internet Options. If you know the proxy settings, you can configure them by opening Internet Options directly from Control Panel, or by opening Internet Explorer and selecting Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings.

Alternatively, and likely preferred if errors occur, you can download the [offline version of the installer](https://www.pidgin.im/download/windows)

It is possible using old versions of Pidgin and GTK, but we do not support this. Don't do it.