Lua for Windows Icon
A batteries included Lua installation on Windows.

Overview

Lua for Windows is a 'batteries included environment' for the Lua scripting language on Windows.

Lua for Windows (LfW) combines Lua binaries, Lua libraries with a Lua-capable editor in a single install package for the Microsoft Windows operating system. LfW contains everything you need to write, run and debug Lua scripts on Windows. A wide variety of libraries and examples are included that are ready to use with Microsoft Windows. LfW runs on Windows 2000 and newer versions of Windows. Lua and its associated libraries are also available for other operating systems, so most scripts will be automatically cross-platform.

Download

Download Lua_V5.1.4.28.exe from LuaForge.
Download Lua_V5.1.4.28.exe from Google Code.

Install Notes

Lua for Windows installs Lua language, SciTE based Lua IDE and Lua modules to the directory of you choice at install time. Lua for Windows and it's modules all depend on the MSVC++ 2005 runtime library. Lua for Windows install will automatically downloads this runtime and install it for you if you don't have runtime installed on your computer. The runtime is contained in the file redist_x86.exe, if you don't want this download to occur at installation then place the redist_86.exe in same directory as Lua for Windows install exe.

LfW Components

Installer
Lua Interpreter,
Lua Reference Manual,
Quick Lua Tour Sample,
Examples directory,
Libraries with documentation.
Lua Compiler (luac)
Text Editors (SciTE and I think maybe wxLua editors too)
C header files/libraries/etc. for building C module

Libraries included 

Library
Version
Description
Alien 0.4.1 Provides access to functions in an unknown or new .dll.
IUP 2.7.1 LightPortable Graphical User Interface library.
CD 5.1.1 Canvas Draw: A platform-independent graphic library.
IM 3.4.1 A toolkit for Digital Imaging.
Ex Jan 07 Adds environment, file system, I/O (Locking and pipes), and process control.
LPeg 0.9 Pattern-matching library based on Parsing Expression Grammars (PEGs).
Lua-GD 2.9.33r2 Image manipulation library based on Thomas Boutell’s GD library.
LuaCOM 1.3b2 Enable use & implementation of Microsoft’s Component Object Model.
LuaCURL 1.0 Interface to Internet browsing capabilities based on the cURL library.
Date 2 Date and Time library for Lua.
LuaDoc 3.01 Documentation tool for Lua source code.
LuaExpat 1.1.0 Lua interface to XML Expat parsing library.
LuaFileSystem 1.4.2 Access the directory structure and file attributes.
LuaLogging 1.1.4 Logging features in Lua, based on log4j.
LuaProfiler 2.0.1 Time profiler designed to find bottlenecks in Lua programs.
LuaSocket 2.0.2 Lua interface to support HTTP,FTP,SMTP, MIME, URL & LTN12.
LuaSQL 2.1.1 Lua interface for PostgreSQL, ODBC, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, and ADO dbms.
LuaUnit 1.3 Testing framework for Lua.
LuaZip 1.2.3 Read files from zip files.
stdlib 11 Library of modules for common programming tasks, including list, table and functional operations, regexps, objects, pretty-printing and getopt.
lrexlib 2.2 Regular expression library for Lua.
MD5 1.1.2 Basic cryptographic facilities for Lua.
Copas 1.1.5 Dispatcher based on coroutines that can be used by TCP/IP servers.
Coxpcall 1.13 Encapsulates the protected calls with a coroutine based loop, so errors can be dealed without the usual pcall/xpcall issues with coroutines.
Rings 1.2.2 Provides a way to create new Lua states from within Lua. It also offers a simple way to communicate between the creator (master) and the created (slave) states.
LOOP 2.3 Beta LOOP stands for Lua Object-Oriented Programming and is a set of packages for supporting different models of object-oriented programming in the Lua language.
LuaTask 1.6.4 Implements a concurrent and independent Lua execution environment model.
LuaInterface 2.0.1 Integration between the Lua language and Microsoft .NET platform's Common Language Runtime (CLR).
wxLua 2.8.7 Lua binding to thewxWidgets library.
lpack 29 Jun 2007 19:27:20 Lua library for packing and unpacking binary data.
VStruct 1.0 beta2 Provides functions for manipulating binary data.
LuaBitOps 1.0.1 Lua BitOp is a C extension module for Lua 5.1 which adds bitwise operations on numbers.
LuaXML 1.3 A module that maps between Lua and XML without much ado.
Lanes 2.0.3 Provides the possibility to run multiple Lua states in parallel.
MetaLua 0.5-rc1 A complete macro system with full compatibility with Lua 5.1 sources and bytecode: clean, elegant semantics and syntax, amazing expressive power, good performances, near-universal portability.

History

5.1.3.12 [9/July/2008] First release. 

5.1.3.13 [16/July/2008] Second release.
- New libs LOOPS, LuaTask & LuaInterface.
- Add Lua headers & Lua lib needing for embedding Lua.

5.1.3.15 [7/August/2008] Third release.
- Added an environment variable called "LUA_DEV" to help C module developers
  configure their build files. This allows for the paths to be common and
  easily added to the project settings. (e.g. $(LUA_DEV)/include; $(LUA_DEV)/lib)
- Added the ability to download the 'vcredist_x86.exe'.
- Fixed Visual C++ 8.0 run-time problems. There now has to be a run-time
  for every dll loaded.
- Removed 'msvcr80.dll' from the root application directory.
- Updated the Visual C++ 8.0 run-time to SP1.
- Updated StdLib to version 6.
- Fixed missing Scite install issue with 5.1.3.14 release.

5.1.4.17 [9/September/2008] Fourth release.
- Fixed the readyiss.bat file to work with the new 'lua' directory.
- Added wxLua support.
- Updated to Lua v5.1.4.
- Changed the 'lualibs' to 'lua' to support the default locations.
- Updated SciTE property file to make the help show up correctly.
- Removed setting the LUA_PATH and LUA_CPATH environment variables.

5.1.4.18 [11/September/2008] Fifth release.
- Updated Stdlib to version 8.
- Updated the quickluatour.lua.
- Updated the luaforwindows document.
- Fixed LuaInterface module.

5.1.4.19 [08/October/2008] 6th release.
- Release on  http://luaforwindows.googlecode.com/ to cover
  when LuaForge site was unavailable.

5.1.4.20 [26/November/2008] 7th release.
- Added lpack (29 Jun 2007 19:27:20) module.
- Added VStruct v 1.0 beta2 Lua module.
- Added BitLib release 25 module.
- Added LuaXML v1.3 module.
- Updated IUP to version 2.7.
- Updated CD to version 5.1.
- Updated IM to version 3.4.

5.1.4.21 [5/December/2008] 8th release.
- Fixed a SciTE bug when opening the Lua manual.
- Added lExecutor. This is a wxLua application that allows users to run console
  Lua scripts in a simple GUI. Look at the documentation
  (<lFW root>\docs\lexecutor) for more information.
- Added *.lexe files to run using lExecutor.
- Associated *.lexe files to a custom icon.

5.1.4.22 [12/January/2009] 9th release.
- Added LuaBitOp v1.0.1 library.
- Fixed a bug in lExecutor to properly pass file loading error to the user.
- Fixed LuaDoc templates a bit for 'tables' and 'functions'.
- Fixed LuaXML so it actually works. Opps.
- Updated Copas to version 1.1.4.
- Updated IUP to version 2.7.1.
- Updated CD to version 5.1.1.
- Updated IM to version 3.4.1.
- Removed BitLib. Use LuaBitOp instead.

5.1.4.23 [06/Febuary/2009] 10th release.
- Added MetaLua v0.5-rc1.
- Added the 'strict.lua' file shipped in the Lua in the 'etc' directory.
- Added Lanes v2.0.3 library.
- Updated LuaFileSystem to version 1.4.2.

5.1.4.24 rc1 [14/April/2009]   11th release
- Updated LPeg to version 0.9.
- Updated Copas to version 1.1.5.
- Updated the Lua executables so they run on Windows 64

5.1.4.25 rc2  [15/April/2009] 12th release
- Updated lua51.dll manifest to allow running on Windows 64.

5.1.4.26 rc3 [23/April/2009] 13th release
- Added an option to start the quickluatour.lua after installation
  completes.
- Added a link to the lExecutor documentation in the start menu.
- Now you can launch quickluatour.lua at the end of the installer
- Updated luaforwindows.html to be the right version in the example.
- Updated the LuaQuickTour thanks to Dirk Feytons.
- Fixed SciTE saving a debugger file to the current running scripts
  directory. Now it saves it to your local temp directory.
- Fixed SciTE toolbar icons being incorrect.
 
5.1.4-27 rc4 [27/April/2009]14th release
- Fixed SciTE debugger looking for the temp file in the %TMP% location.
- Fixed debugging files with spaces in the filename.
- Updated the IM, CD, and IUP examples.
- Made SciTE use the lua5.1.dll.
- Changed the version number to use a '-' as a build number of the LfW
  package.
- Changed the installer display name to 'Lua For Windows'.
 
5.1.4-28 [29/June/2009] 15th release
- Fixed SciTE debugger to allow it to debug modules in the same directory
  as the file using the module.
- Updated Stdlib to version 11.
 

Credits

Lua for Windows was created by Ryan Pusztai , Steve Donovan, and Andrew Wilson.

Contact

For more information please email LuaforWindows@gmail.com. All comments are welcome!