Updating Windows and your computer:

1) If you have a laptop or prebuilt desktop computer, visit the manufacturer's website and download all available updates for drivers, firmware, and other supporting software. This may be available as a single package for your model of computer, or it may be several separate installations.

2) Update your Vista installation so that you have all of the most recent patches to Windows itself. See the Vista Updates website for help, or use your Windows Update utility.

3) Install this Windows component which may not be included in the regular updates.



Installing Starry Night:

1) Download and install the latest version of Java.

2a) If your Starry Night disc lists Vista on it as one of the supported operating systems, you do not need any special installation instructions. Simply insert the disc and let the installer run.

2b) If your disc only lists Windows XP and Mac OSX as supported operating systems, the following instructions are required, as you don't have the Vista-compatible installer.

• Open your Windows Explorer and look for the following location on your Starry Night disc: Data/Disk1/InstData/Windows/Vm/Install.exe (Note: on some older version 5 editions, a file called setup.exe is right there when you look at the contents of the disc. If you have a disc like that, apply the following directions to the setup.exe file instead of the install.exe file.)
  
• Right-click on Install.exe and choose Properties. Click on the Compatibility tab.
  
• Make sure the box for 'Run in compatibility mode for...' is checked and that Windows XP is selected from the dropdown menu. Also check the box for 'Run in adminstrator mode'.
  
• Click OK and double-click on Install.exe to install Starry Night.
  

To update to the latest version of Starry Night, simply download the standalone updater from our updates page and run it by double-clicking. Do not use the special compatibility mode instructions; just save and double-click.

2c) If you have a Digital Download installer that is earlier than version 6.0.6, right-click on the installer, choose Properties and click the Compatibility tab, and set the compatibility options as described above in 2b). If you have Digital Download 6.0.6 or 6.2.x, its installer is already Vista-compatible, and you just have to double-click to install it.

3a) Visit the Starry Night Updates page to make sure you have the latest version of Starry Night itself. Download the latest update available for your version.

3b) For all versions 5.x and earlier, use the compatibility mode settings on the installer as well as any program updates you download. If you are running version 5.x, run the program, register, and set your home location BEFORE downloading and installing any updates.

If the updater is unable to find your Starry Night installation, please disable your antivirus software and then run the update.



Using Starry Night:

1) Download and install the latest version of Quicktime.

IMPORTANT: Older versions of Starry Night are not compatible with Quicktime 7.4 and later. Quicktime 7.4 was released on 16 January 2008.

If you are using Starry Night 5 or earlier, Quicktime should not be updated further than version 7.3.1. If you already have Quicktime 7.4 or later, click here for instructions on reverting to version 7.3.1.

If you are using Starry Night 6.x, update it to the latest version, because Starry Night 6.2.3 is compatible with Quicktime 7.4 and later.

2) Check your graphics card drivers and update them if necessary. You might have a utility in your computer that tells you when your graphics card needs new drivers, but it often won't catch the latest updates. If you have a prebuilt computer, you should visit the computer manufacturer's support website to update your drivers.

If you built your own computer or changed the graphics card in a prebuilt computer, you can get the drivers from the graphics card manufacturer instead.

If you aren't sure what graphics card you have, right-click on your desktop background and choose Personalize, and then choose Display options. The graphics card should be listed underneath the picture of rectangles representing your monitor configuration.

If you have an NVIDIA / GeForce card, go to http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
If you have an ATI / Radeon card, go to http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
If you have integrated Intel graphics, go to http://www.intel.com/support/ and look under Top Recommended Downloads for your Graphics Media Accelerator driver.

3) Make sure you are not running the program itself in compatibility mode. Starry Night is Vista-compatible, and running it in XP mode may create errors. To make sure, right-click on your Starry Night desktop icon (the one you use to start the program) and choose Properties. Click the Compatibility tab and make sure the box for 'Run in compatibility mode' is not checked. You may need to leave the box for 'Run as administrator' checked.