Nagesh Blog: Installing Solr 4.6 on Windows

The steps below are a guide to help you install Solr versions 4.1 to 4.6. Here, I tested Solr 4.6 installation on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

1. Download and install Java SDK (I installed jdk-7u45-windows-x64.exe).

2. Download and install Apache Tomcat (I installed apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.exe). Usually, Tomcat is installed on port 8983 (but this is optional- you can specify your own port).

3. Test the Tomcat server in your browser. You should see the following screen:

4. You can configure the Tomcat server by going to Windows > Start > Monitor Tomcat

5. Stop the Tomcat server by going to Windows > Start > Monitor Tomcat > General Tab> Stop

6. Download Solr-4.6.0 and unzip it in your local directory i.e. C:\ Solr-4.6.0 (download zip file).
7. Go to downloaded Solr folder above (step 6) and Copy solr.war file to Apache webapps folder. I.e. Copy C:\solr-4.6.0\dist\solr-4.6.0.war file to C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\webapps folder (rename solr-4.6.0.war to solr.war).
8. Create an empty Solr home folder. i.e. C:\solr
9. Go to downloaded Solr folder above (step 6). Copy all files from C:\solr-4.6.0\solr-4.6.0\example\solr folder to C:\solr (Solr home folder). This will be your Solr home folder.
10. Look into C:\solr and you will see two folders with name collection1 and bin.
11. Copy the jars from C:\solr-4.6.0\example\lib\ext (all jars) into C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\lib (this is your Tomcat server main library directory).
12. Set the Java system property solr.solr.home to your Solr Home. Go to Windows > Start > Monitor Tomcat > Java Tab > Java Options. Enter the following entry at the end (see below screenshot): -Dsolr.solr.home=c:\solr