Otherwise, the manual method takes under three minutes and gives you full control.
First, install Chocolatey if you haven’t (from their official site). Then run:
winget install libxml2 That’s it. The package libxml2 contains xmllint . Once installed, close and reopen your terminal, then test it: How To Install Xmllint Windows
xmllint --version If you see version info, you’re done. If you already use Chocolatey, this feels natural.
choco install libxml2 After installation, restart your terminal and verify with xmllint --version . No winget ? No Chocolatey? No problem. Let’s do it manually. Step 1: Download the binaries Go to the official libxml2 Windows build from Zlatkovic (the de facto source for Windows ports): Otherwise, the manual method takes under three minutes
Look for the latest libxml2-2.x.x-win32-x86_64.zip (or win32 if you need 32-bit). Unzip the archive to a permanent location, like C:\Program Files\libxml2 .
xmllint --version If you get an error about missing DLLs ( libxml2.dll , libiconv.dll , etc.), copy them from the same bin folder into C:\Windows\System32 , or add the bin folder to your system PATH (the same way as above). Once installed, try a real command. Save this as test.xml : The package libxml2 contains xmllint
The catch? It comes natively with Linux and macOS, but not Windows.
Don’t worry. Here are three reliable ways to get xmllint running on your Windows machine, from easiest to most "pro." Windows 11 and modern Windows 10 come with winget , Microsoft’s package manager. This is by far the fastest method.