checking and upgrade cURL version on windows server 2008R2

Please note: these are generic instructions and not specific to Windows Server. Furthermore, PHP and (to the best of my knowledge) Plesk currently use the version of cURL registered with the OS.

How do I check whether cURL is installed? How do I check the version?

If cURL is registered at the command line, you should be able to use where curl to determine the location of curl.exe (the Windows where command is similar to which on *nix-style systems). You can also use curl -V to check your cURL version.

If these commands fail, you will (optionally) have to check your installed software, make a search of your hard drive for curl.exe or use other means to confirm if cURL is actually installed.

How do I upgrade to the latest version of cURL?

Typically, you will want to remove the old version and replace it with a compatible Win32 or Win64 version of cURL from the official cURL download page.

Personally, I might suggest the builds by Viktor Szakats (he builds the latest versions frequently and often has a good amount of features enabled). You need to click on the blue revision number link (e.g. 7.59.0) if you wish to download the actual curl .zip file (or whatever). Author name links often lead to unrelated pages.

Update:

The Viktor Szakats builds seem to have been supplanted by the official builds of cURL for Windows (which are good and still recommended).

Caveats

• Not all builds on the cURL download page have all the same features enabled. You can check build options with curl -V (they are listed in the banner information) if you need to confirm support for a specific option/protocol.

• You may need to register your new cURL installation folder (ex. C:\path\to\cURL) in your Windows Path variable to allow cURL to be used from the command line.