There’s a substantial amount of people talking about Kodi and what it can offer you as far as the media experience goes. It can be fairly complicated to download on devices like the Fire TV, NVIDIA Shield, etc, but it’s pretty straightforward as far as downloading it and getting it running on the Windows PC goes.
Today, we’re going to show you and take you step-by-step on how you can easily download Kodi on your Windows PC for free. Be sure to follow along below, and we’ll get you up and running in just a few minutes.
How To Install and Run Kodi On Windows PC
Installing Kodi on Windows
Installing Kodi in windows 10 is super straightforward. All you need is the installation wizard or .exe file downloaded. Once it is, it’s as simple as double-clicking the .exe and following the installation instructions.
To start, you’ll need to go to the Kodi website and to the Downloads page. You can get quick access to it here. You’ll have to choose which platform you’re download for, and since we’re trying to get it running on Windows, you’ll want to click the Windows icon. It’ll give you an option to download it from the Windows Store or to download the .exe directly. We suggest the latter, but if you’re on Windows 10 S, you might be forced to use the Windows Store option.
Once downloaded, open up the .exe and follow the installation process. It should be ready to roll on your PC in just a couple of seconds. Once the full install is complete, we recommend restarting your PC before continuing.
The Kodi application should be available on your desktop. Double-click it to open the application, and you’ll notice that it’s working perfectly. You’ll also notice that it’s pretty bare bones and there’s not a whole lot going on with it. That’s where Kodi addons come in. Kodi addons are user-developed “plugins” that allow you to extend Kodi’s capabilties by offering you all types of content — TV shows, movies, radio stations, etc. The content caries from addon to addon, but for the most part, you should be able to watch all of your favorite shows that air on TV with a good Kodi addon.
So, how do you install a Kodi addon? If you follow along below, we’ll show you how you can start adding addons to your Kodi install. It’s a little more complicated that installing Kodi itself, but if you follow the instructions, it should be a breeze.
Installing a Kodi addon
To install an addon, launch the Kodi app. In the top left corner, you’ll see a button that is the Package Installer. You’ll want to click it.
Next, click on the link that says Install From Repository. From here, click on Kodi Add-on Repository and then Video Add-ons. Now, we’re at a place where we can view a bunch of different video add-ons that can be installed to your Kodi client. You can select any of them, but for our purposes, we’ll select the live TV add-on, USTVNOW.
Click on USTVNOW, and then the Install button. This can take a bit of time, depending on how fast your Internet connection is; however, once it’s finished and ready to be used, you should see a notification that says USTVNOW Add-on Enabled or something similar to that.
To access our newly installed addon, you’ll want to head back to the Kodi home page. You can select the Add-ons tab from the left-hand navigation column. This will take you to all of your installed addons. To start using USTVNOW, it’s as simple as clicking on the addon and browsing through the content available. Select anything you’d like to watch!
VPNs
It can be dangerous using Kodi, so it’s always good to use a VPN to privatize and encrypt your browsing and streaming data. Since many addons get their content from illegal websites, there are chances that you could get a warning letter or copyright infringement letter. So, it’s always good to be extra careful with a VPN.
Not only that, but a VPN can make it easier to stream content. A lot of ISPs will slowdown your connection based on what you’re doing (i.e. streaming Netflix), but a VPN will make it so your ISP can’t see what you’re doing, and thus, cannot slow down your content. So, you may see a streaming speed increase with a good VPN.
Verdict
As you can see, it’s super easy to get Kodi installed on your PC, and getting addons installed within Kodi isn’t difficult either. If you’re looking for a handful of good addons to download to Kodi, be sure to check out our post on the best Kodi addons for Windows PC.