The first screen you will see will give four options. The first two deal with installation, doing an Express install and a Custom install. For this tutorial, the steps for doing a Custom install will be followed, so click on custom install.

The next screen gives you the product ID number. You can take note of this if you wish, but for most programs, it is never used.

Flight simulator will ask you to install DirectX 9.0a, allow this to run unless you already have it or a more recent version on your system.

Next you will be asked if you wish to install Media Player. If you've done this previously, it is not required to install it again. Media Player is also only used for the movies in the help files. Some people never use the help, and if you feel you don't need it, you can skip this step.

On the next screen, you will be asked to choose whether you want to do a Complete Install or a Compact Install. The Compact Install takes up less space on the hard drive, but it means the computer will have to access the CD more while the program is running, which affects performance. On this same screen, you can also choose the folder you wish to put it in, or leave the default of c:\program files\microsoft games\flight simulator 9. You can also decide to put an icon on the desktop at this point.

Click install and the setup starts copying files from the cd to the hard drive.

Because the program comes on four CDs, you will be asked three times to place the next CD in the drive.

After the files are copied, setup extracts the compressed cab files. The will take several minutes.

The install is now finished, setup will restart your computer.

When you launch Flight Simulator 2004 for the first time, you will be show the End User License Agreement. You must accept all the terms of the agreement before you can use the software.