-- -- Windows dev Install: -- Installing postgres on windows as a unpriviledged user (avoiding the necessity of administrator rights): -- dependency: Visual C Runtime dynamic library (msvcredist_x64) (so if necessary install this first) -- download zip file; https://www.enterprisedb.com/download-postgresql-binaries "Binaries from installer Version 11.5" -- unzip the pgsql directory somewhere, and cd into it: cd pgsql -- run initdb: bin\initdb -D 11\data -- to start postgres: "bin\pg_ctl" -D "11/data" -l logfile start -- to stop: close all connections, and then run: "bin\pg_ctl" -D "11/data" -l logfile stop default port will be: 5432 (Install DBI + DBD::Pg to connect via perl ) I ran this on a rather old win2k, but it will probably also work on newer windows. (tweak the slashes a bit and it will work on linux too (with the proper file download, of course)) perl -MDBI -Mstrict -e 'my$dbh=DBI->connect("dbi:Pg:port=5432;db=postgres;", undef, undef,{RaiseError=>1}); print $dbh, "\n"'; output: DBI::db=HASH(0x1b5a808) -> apparently the connection succeeded