You will need to create API Keys (Usually you get `key` and `secret`) from the Exchange website and insert this into the appropriate fields in the configuration or when asked by the installation script.
Windows installation is explained [here](#windows).
The easiest way to install and run Freqtrade is to clone the bot GitHub repository and then run the Easy Installation script, if it's available for your platform.
!!! Note "Version considerations"
When cloning the repository the default working branch has the name `develop`. This branch contains all last features (can be considered as relatively stable, thanks to automated tests). The `master` branch contains the code of the last release (done usually once per month on an approximately one week old snapshot of the `develop` branch to prevent packaging bugs, so potentially it's more stable).
!!! Note
Python3.6 or higher and the corresponding `pip` are assumed to be available. The install-script will warn you and stop if that's not the case. `git` is also needed to clone the Freqtrade repository.
(1) This command switches the cloned repository to the use of the `master` branch. It's not needed if you wish to stay on the `develop` branch. You may later switch between branches at any time with the `git checkout master`/`git checkout develop` commands.
This option will pull the last version of your current branch and update your virtualenv. Run the script with this option periodically to update your bot.
Use this option to configure the `config.json` configuration file. The script will interactively ask you questions to setup your bot and create your `config.json`.
*Note*: If you run the bot on a server, you should consider using [Docker](docker.md) or a terminal multiplexer like `screen` or [`tmux`](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmux) to avoid that the bot is stopped on logout.
On Linux, as an optional post-installation task, you may wish to setup the bot to run as a `systemd` service or configure it to send the log messages to the `syslog`/`rsyslog` or `journald` daemons. See [Advanced Post-installation Tasks](advanced-setup.md) for details.
Make sure to use 64bit Windows and 64bit Python to avoid problems with backtesting or hyperopt due to the memory constraints 32bit applications have under Windows.
Using the [Anaconda Distribution](https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/) under Windows can greatly help with installation problems. Check out the [Conda section](#using-conda) in this document for more information.
As compiling from source on windows has heavy dependencies (requires a partial visual studio installation), there is also a repository of unofficial precompiled windows Wheels [here](https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#ta-lib), which needs to be downloaded and installed using `pip install TA_Lib‑0.4.17‑cp36‑cp36m‑win32.whl` (make sure to use the version matching your python version)
error: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 is required. Get it with "Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools": http://landinghub.visualstudio.com/visual-cpp-build-tools
```
Unfortunately, many packages requiring compilation don't provide a pre-build wheel. It is therefore mandatory to have a C/C++ compiler installed and available for your python environment to use.
The easiest way is to download install Microsoft Visual Studio Community [here](https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/) and make sure to install "Common Tools for Visual C++" to enable building c code on Windows. Unfortunately, this is a heavy download / dependency (~4Gb) so you might want to consider WSL or [docker](docker.md) first.