There are two ways to install jekyll: the easy way and the (relatively) hard way.
####THE EASY WAY
The easy way is to download Railsinstaller. It sets up ruby, rails, bundler and other packages in C:\Railsinstaller. (Note: since I already have git installed elsewhere, I unchecked the install dialog box for git and ssh.)
Once you’ve got Railsinstaller up and running, open powershell and run:
cd C:/Railsinstaller
gem install jekyll
I tried to run gem install rdiscount as well, but couldn’t get it to work. As a result, in the _config.yml file for any jekyll project I create, I have to add markdown: kramdown. (The other option is markdown: maruku, but that also doesn’t work on Windows.)
####THE (RELATIVELY) HARDER WAY
(Note: since Railsinstaller alters the PATH, if you’ve ever installed ruby before, make sure you amend your PATH variable to not include ruby before you start this.)
First, go to rubyinstaller.org/downloads.
Then, download ruby 1.9.3 as well as the dev kit.
Run the ruby-1.9.3 executable. When prompted, be sure to check the box for adding ruby to your path; without this, ruby commands won’t work in powershell. Also check the other boxes. Finally, specify that the ruby files should be installed to C:/ruby193.
Now extract the devkit files into C:\RubyDevKit.
Open powershell and run:
cd C:\RubyDevKit
ruby dk.rb init
ruby dk.rb install
From within the same devkit directory, now run:
gem install jekyll
gem install rdiscount
Note: as with the easy method, I couldn’t get rdiscount to work here either. So I also had to add markdown: kramdown to the _config.yml file of my projects using this method as well.