Installing MPlayer on Windows
Software name : MPlayer
Homepage : http://www.mplayerhq.hu
Software version used for this installation : 1.0rc1
Operating System use for this installation : Windows 2000
Recommended Hardware : 300Mhz CPU, internet connection, 11 MB disk space.
Additional software required : any software to open zip files
Installing MPlayer on Windows is perhaps slightly different to most Windows installation processes because there is no 'installer' as such. You just download the zip file from the website, open the zip, and copy the files to where you want them. Since the installation file is a zip file you will need to also have installed any software than can open zip files. There are plenty of these available. If you don't have one then use a search engine to find one online, most of them don't cost you anything for the use of an evaluation version.
Downloading MPlayer
The latest stable version of MPlayer for Windows can be downloaded from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html (or by clicking on the Download link from the from page of the MPlayer website - http://www.mplayerhq.hu ) The latest version at the time of writing this document is MPlayer 1.0rc1 Windows GUI .
To download MPlayer for Windowssimply click on one of the two letter links in one of the columns next to MPlayer 1.0rc1 Windows GUI. It shouldn't make much difference which link you click, I used 'CH' in the HTTP? column and it was very fast to download.
Depending on your web browser and its settings you may see the following window at the start of the download:
Make sure you download the file (in this case choose Save to Disk) and make sure you know where it is being downloaded to. In this example (we are downloading using the FireFox Browser) you then press OK and the download begins. This process might be slightly different depending on what version of Windows you are using and what browser you are using. In this case we see a window like this:
When the download is complete you need to open the directory where the file has been downloaded. In my case I download everything to the Desktop, so I just need to close by browser and the file should be there:
Now, with the application I use to open zip files I just need to right click on the zip file and choose Extract to here
I will then have a new folder appear on my Desktop :
Remember, the process for opening the zip file may very different on your computer. If you don't know how your zip software works you may need to first read up on this.
If I now double click on the newly created folder I see this:
The icon I want to click on is the gmplayer icon. The g in gmplayer stands for 'graphical' which means that this is a version of MPlayer that has a graphical user interface. The 'normal' mode of using MPlayer is through the command line but if you haven't used a command line before then we want to stick with gmplayer
Double click on the gmplayer icon, you will hopefully now see something like this :
Moving MPlayer
Now, you probably don't want MPlayer just hanging around in a directory somewhere. It would be much better to be able to access MPlayer like other applications. The way you do this varies depending on what version of Windows you are using. The best thing is perhaps to copy the MPlayer folder to your Programs Files and then create a desktop shortcut. In some versions of Windows you can also drag the shortcut icon onto your Start menu so you can access it from there.
