Question: This could be an annoying question. But I was hoping someone could provide me with step by step instructions on how to get GLPK up and running on a Windows machine. I have Windows 7 64-bit.

I have tried looking at some instructions on various websites but keep running into problems. I am not very versed in creating directories, working with binaries (e.g. what is a binary), etc.... Even running commands is a little foreign to me. 

To get an idea of what kind of detail I need in the instructions, here are some I have tried (and failed) to use:

<http://winglpk.sourceforge.net/>

<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GLPK/Windows>

As you can see, I need something fairly detailed. I have read an example of a GLPK program in action, and I believe that once I get the program up and running I should be able to write the code to use it.

Can anyone help me? I would be so grateful. 

EDIT: As a parallel question, I would also be interested in suggestions for other programs that will do the similar things as GLPK, but are more straightforward to install and use.

Answer: 
Here are a few suggestions to get you moving forward:

1. If you are having difficulty with running Windows command-line, then maybe GLPK (installing by yourself) is not the best bet.
	* See if you can find someone more experienced in Windows help you with the installation? (Once installed the LP modules are fairly easy to use, no more complex than any of the others)
	* Do you have access to any commercial solvers? (MATLAB and CPLEX can be great)
	* If you are going to be working with Windows for some time to come, it is a good idea to invest some time to learn how to download and install software
2. [This SO question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/502102/best-open-source-mixed-integer-optimization-solver) has links to lots of other LP/IP solvers such as Gurobi and COIN-OR.
3. If you don't mind learning a bit of R programming language, I'd recommend downloading R and RStudio, both of which are straightforward. Next, what you want is the [lpSolveAPI](http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lpSolveAPI/lpSolveAPI.pdf) package. The examples are decent and you can get going in a day or two. (You'll have to learn the basics of R)

If none of these help you progress, post some details of where you are getting stuck in the GLPK download (post the errors you are getting) and someone will try and assist you.

Hope that helps
In my opinion, it would be *way* easier for you to install e.g. ubuntu, especially if you are interested in other GNU programs. You can use every open-source program on windows, but it will not be easy if you don't understand what is a "search path for binaries"...

Installing softwares and libraries on windows is *not* easy, which is why windows program usually come with a `setup.exe` installer that does everything for you (but GNU programs don't).

On the other hand, ubuntu has a beginner-friendly documentation, and once you have installed it on your computer (it won't take you more than 2 hours at most, and 10G of disk space), installing GLPK or any GNU program is pretty straigtforward (just type `sudo apt-get install glpk` on the command-line).

There is no drawback in having the two systems on the same computer (except for the small amount of disk space used), and getting to know another operating system will certainly teach you more than following any step-by-step guide anyway.

That would be my "general advice". Now if you just want help on how to install glpk on windows, please post more details about what "doesn't work" for you (where did you "failed" to use those instruction? what happened?) because I don't think you can find something more detailed than the second link you posted.