Introduction

This page is part of the Quick Start for Balsa.

It tells you how to take a Balsa SD card and use it to prepare a Windows machine to run Balsa. Instructions for how to produce a Balsa SD card are available on the Quick Start for Balsa page.

Instructions

1. Start Windows in an account with Administrator's privileges.
2. Plug the Balsa SD card into the computer.
3. Open the Balsa SD Card in Windows Explorer to the main folder. This will probably happen automatically when you plug the card in.
4. You will see a file named SetUpBalsa (Depending on how your computer is set up, this file may be named SetUpBalsa.cmd)
5. For Vista or Win7, right-click on the file and select Run As Administrator. For XP double-click on the file. 
6. Windows may ask you for permission to continue. Answer Yes.
7. A window will open and tell you that some files have been copied and that Balsa has been added into the boot menu of the machine.
8. If you want to change which menu item gets automatically chosen, or the amount of time that the boot menu will display, the instructions for that are on the Modify the Windows Boot Menu-XP and Modify the Windows Boot Menu-Vista or 7 pages.

That's all you have to do to set up the machine to run Balsa. The next time you restart, you will see a menu with two items, one for Windows and one for Balsa. Choose the Balsa entry to run Balsa.

Running Balsa

Once you have set up your machine, do this to run Balsa: Running Balsa