Starry Night College 6 is fully compatible with Windows 7. If you have trouble installing or running Starry Night College on your Windows 7 computer, try the following steps.

A. Before Installing Starry Night College

Make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements

• Requires Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• 1GHz or higher processor
• 512 MB RAM
• 1 GB of hard disk space
• 64 MB OpenGL capable graphics card
• Minimum recommended monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels

Make sure Windows 7 is up to date

Click the Start button in the lower left of your screen, and choose All Programs -> Windows Update. Follow the prompts to install updates.

You can also check for updates by clicking the Action Center icon in the taskbar and then selecting Check for Updates.

B. Installing Starry Night College

StarryNightCollege6.exe is not a valid Win32 application

When installing Starry Night for Windows, the installation may not complete and Windows may display the following message: "StarryNightCollege6.exe is not a valid Win32 application." Download Starry Night College again from the link found on your order confimation email and check that the size of the StarryNightCollege6.exe file you downloaded is about 551 MB.

If the problem persists, downloading Starry Night College using a different web browser may resolve this issue. If you do not have another web browser and use Internet Explorer, follow these steps to remove temporary Internet files which may be preventing the Starry Night College installer from downloading properly:

C. Running Starry Night College

Do not run in compatibility mode

Make sure you are not running the program itself in compatibility mode. Starry Night is Windows 7-compatible, and running it in XP or Vista 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.

Update your graphics card driver

If Starry Night College gives you an error message or crashes before loading the sky images then install the latest Windows 7 graphics card drivers. A driver is a piece of software that controls hardware in your computer. Updating drivers means keeping your computer working correctly with other programs.

You can update your video card driver by visiting your computer manufacturer's support website. Look for the Drivers or Downloads section. You will probably be asked for the model number or serial number of your computer and will be given links to download the appropriate drivers. Download and install anything related to Video or Graphics. This will make sure that your graphics hardware is working at full capacity.

Here are some links to common computer brands' driver download sites.

Dell

HP

Gateway

Acer

If you have a home-built computer, you will need to identify your graphics card. To do this, click Start > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization > Display Settings.

Here are some links to common video cards.

NVIDIA / GeForce cards

ATI / Radeon cards

Intel integrated graphics

If you are unable to identify your graphics card, find drivers for it, or find drivers for your computer, please contact technical support.

Starry Night College stops working after or during Home Location selection

Right-click the program icon on your desktop and choose Run as Administrator. This will ensure that Starry Night has access to all the folders where it needs to create files. You may be asked for your system password.

Still having problems?

Get in touch with Starry Night technical support by sending an email through our support site or by contacting starrynightedu on Yahoo! IM.