Install Ghidra on Windows 10 Detailed Steps

This post has been updated, please see 9.1.2 directions here!

Ghidra, an NSA tool recently published by the NSA is a software “reverse engineering (SRE) suite of tools developed by NSA's Research Directorate in support of the Cybersecurity mission."  I decided to do this tutorial because there is (at this time) limited English directions for the amateur available. 

Now, this tool is open-source and hosted on Github for transparency. The source code is not kept a secret, but many people are probably skeptical of installing NSA applications on their machines anyway. With the occurrence of the Shadow brokers and the inevitable future exposure of NSA applications, I do not think this is the last time an NSA application will be made public for the "greater good". So, let's benefit, and review the software installation for Windows 10 below.

I have added some screenshots to the default Ghidra installation steps to help those who want to streamline deployment.

1. Visit https://ghidra-sre.org/ghidra_9.0.4_PUBLIC_20190516.zip

2. Extract the JDK:
1. Right-click on the zip file and click Extract All...

2. Click Extract (to a location you can find, like “Desktop”)
3. Open Environment Variables window
4. Windows 10: Right-click on Windows start button, and click System

5. Click Advanced system settings

3. Click Environment variables

4. Add the JDK bin directory to the PATH variable:
1. Under System variables, highlight Path and click Edit.
2. At the end of the the Variable value field, add a semicolon followed by \bin

5. Once complete, launch ghidraRun.bat

6. A cmd prompt window will open, it should not ask for a Java runtime location. If it does, ensure your path is set in the environment variable portion of the installation. Once the cmd box closes, you should see:

7. Followed by a new project window.

8. Enjoy!