How to Setup a Monero Wallet to Send and Receive Funds Anonymously - Windows Guide

Monero has been making headlines recently after being adopted by Alphabay and Oasis darknet markets. Their value has skyrocketed.

Photo source: IBTimes.co.uk

So I decided to kick the wheels on this coin and see what all the hype is about. The first task was to just create a wallet on my Windows PC and receive some Monero to it. What I found out was Monero is not very easy to use at the moment and although they do offer Windows downloads they are actually DOS command line tools.

I'm going to tell you right now. Installing a full node and running a wallet locally with Monero on Windows was a somewhat painful experience compared to other crypto-currencies. If you just want to get a wallet quick and easy the web wallet is the best solution by far for a quick and easy experience. If you don't have a lot of time and aren't comfortable using a DOS command line then head over to MyMonero.com and create a free web wallet. Otherwise let's get into it:

Downloading and Installing Monero on Windows

To download Monero for Windows go to GetMonero.org - Downloads Page and download either the Windows 64bit or Windows 32bit version. You should download a zip file that will need to be extracted. I extracted mine to e:\cryptocurrencies\monero.

Now you also need to download the existing Blockchain to catch up you could just run bitmonerod.exe and let it download the Blockchain but it's quicker if you just download the raw Monero Blockchain here and save it inside your Monero folder.

Open a command prompt window by pressing the Windows start button then type 'cmd' (no quotes) and press enter. You should now see a DOS command line window. Navigate to your Monero directory for me it is 'cd e:\cryptocurrencies\monero' your location will be different depending on where you extracted your files to. If you use the 'dir' command here you should see a directory listing like the one below:

I probably have a few more files than you because I have already created a couple wallets

I personally do not use the default data directory 'C:\ProgramData\BitMonero' I simply do not have enough room on my C: drive to store all the blockchains I run. That is why I will be using the --data-dir flag on my commands. If you have plenty of spare room on your C: drive then you do not need to use the --data-dir flag. To give you an idea of the storage requirements the raw blockchain is about 3.2GB right now and once you've imported that blockchain it will take up 10GB right now but keep growing.

Importing the Blockchain

Enter the command 'blockchain_import.exe --input-file blockchain.raw --data-dir blockchain' The data-dir can be any directory you wish, it's where the blockchain will be extracted to and grow. You should see something likes this on your screen:

It's going to count all the block heights and then you will begin to see something like this:

This process lasted overnight for myself, it was a very lengthy process. Don't even bother standing by while it catches up with the entire blockchain. This is probably the biggest reason to just use the web wallet mentioned above.

Starting Monero Core

When the process finally finishes it will exit on it's own. You are now ready to launch the Monero core to stay in sync with the blockchain and execute transactions. Enter the command 'bitmonerod.exe --data-dir blockchain' and you should be greated to screen like this one. It will tell you that you are ready to start the simplewallet.

Running Monero Simple Wallet

Now you need to keep this current window open and running while you open another command prompt window. To do this easily just right click on the command prompt icon for the running window on the task bar at the bottom of your screen and select 'command prompt'. It should open up a new command prompt window for you. You'll need to navigate to your monero directory again 'cd e:\cryptocurrencies\monero' is where mine was.

You can now run the command 'simplewallet.exe' it will prompt you for a wallet name this can be anything you want it's just a name you have for your wallet. I used 'mymonero', press enter and it will ask for a password, you don't have to use a password but you can if you want to keep your wallet secure. It will then prompt you for which language you would like to use. Pick the number that corresponds with your language of choice and press enter. You are all done. It has now created a brand new wallet for you with a new address.

You can type help then press enter for a full list of wallet commands that you can use to check your balance, send and receive Monero coins etc. Here is a screen capture of the help screen:

Commands:
  address              Show current wallet public address
  balance              Show current wallet balance
  bc_height            Show blockchain height
  check_tx_key         Check amount going to <address> in <txid>
  get_tx_key           Get transaction key (r) for a given <txid>
  help                 Show this help
  incoming_transfers   incoming_transfers [available|unavailable] - Show incomin
g transfers, all or filtered by availability
  integrated_address   integrated_address [PID] - Encode a payment ID into an in
tegrated address for the current wallet public address (no argument uses a rando
m payment ID), or decode an integrated address to standard address and payment I
D
  payments             payments <PID_1> [<PID_2> ... <PID_N>] - Show payments fo
r given payment ID[s]
  refresh              Synchronize transactions and balance
  rescan_bc            Rescan blockchain from scratch
  rescan_spent         Rescan blockchain for spent outputs
  save                 Save wallet data
  save_bc              Save current blockchain data
  save_watch_only      Save a watch-only keys file
  seed                 Display Electrum-style mnemonic seed
  set                  Available options: seed language - set wallet seed langua
ge; always-confirm-transfers <1|0> - whether to confirm unsplit txes; store-tx-i
nfo <1|0> - whether to store outgoing tx info (destination address, payment ID,
tx secret key) for future reference; default-mixin <n> - set default mixin (defa
ult default is 4); auto-refresh <1|0> - whether to automatically sync new blocks
 from the daemon; refresh-type <full|optimize-coinbase|no-coinbase|default> - se
t wallet refresh behaviour
  set_log              set_log <level> - Change current log detail level, <0-4>
  show_transfers       show_transfers [in|out] [<min_height> [<max_height>]] - S
how incoming/outgoing transfers within an optional height range
  spendkey             Display private spend key
  start_mining         start_mining [<number_of_threads>] - Start mining in daem
on
  stop_mining          Stop mining in daemon
  sweep_unmixable      Send all unmixable outputs to yourself with mixin 0
  transfer             transfer [<mixin_count>] <addr_1> <amount_1> [<addr_2> <a
mount_2> ... <addr_N> <amount_N>] [payment_id] - Transfer <amount_1>,... <amount
_N> to <address_1>,... <address_N>, respectively. <mixin_count> is the number of
 extra inputs to include for untraceability (from 0 to maximum available)
  transfer_new         Same as transfer, but using a new transaction building al
gorithm
  viewkey              Display private view key