Why wget fails with 'https: Host not found' on Windows?

Question

I'm trying to use wget on Windows 8.1 prompt. I installed wget.exe in the folder System32 and run wget on cmd. But the following error appear:

M:\site>wget http://wordpress.org/latest.zip
--15:44:37--  http://wordpress.org:80/latest.zip
       => `latest.zip'
Connecting to wordpress.org:80... connected!
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://wordpress.org/latest.zip [following]
--15:44:37--  ftp://https:21/%2Fwordpress.org/latest.zip
       => `latest.zip'
Connecting to https:21...
https: Host not found

Answer 1

It looks like:

• your wget is old and buggy,
• it doesn't have HTTPS support,
• server sends a malformed redirection.

So it's treating https://foo as if it matched the host:path shorthand syntax for ftp URLs.

So if this command fails for older versions of wget, try to upgrade your wget.

The more recent versions of wget should recognize it at least as an unsupported scheme.

Alternatively use curl, for example:

curl -O http://wordpress.org/latest.zip

Answer 2

Using GNU WGet the following command worked after I got a message about a certificate error:

wget --no-check-certificate "http://wordpress.org/latest.zip"

Using a cURL version with SSL support also works:

curl --insecure "https://wordpress.org/latest.zip" -o wplatest.zip