wget for windows not working even though (I think) I set the path right (Win 8.1)

Question

I installed wget for windows via its setup program. It's installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget.exe, and I've edited the PATH to reflect this (ie added ;C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget.exe to the path). But when I try to run wget the computer doesn't recognise it. Eg.

C:\Users\t0p>wget --help
'wget' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

I followed the instructions here very carefully. Can anyone suggest what's wrong? The wget version is 1.11.4 3.2.8.7 dating from 2008. Do I need to get a more up-to-date version? If so, where might I find it? And how do I remove the older version to make way for the newer version? Or am I going wrong in some other way?

Solution

Add the installation directory to PATH, not the path to wget.exe itself. That is, add this to PATH:

;C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin

When you get an error message like this:

'blah' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

It means the shell could not find blah on PATH. As a sanity check, you can always try to run a program with its absolute path, in this example:

C:
\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget.exe

Comments

[Ravindra Bawane]

A properly configured PATH makes this unnecessary.

[Chaitu Boggavarapu]

@music2myear yeah thought for temporary.