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If you're interested to give Box Of Stops a test drive without a Raspberry Pi, here are some instructions on how to set it upon Windows. Alternatively, you may be interested to boot the PC from a USB stick - more details [[Running on a PC|here]].
The key differences between running Box Of Stops on the Pi and Windows are:
* It is a bit slower under Windows (see the topic on [[Latency]]). Especially with large dramatic chords, Windows isn't quite as responsive, but it is still generally playable
* Form factor - the size of the Pi is much more suited to creating a standalone instrument
* Also when setting up, the install on the Pi is simpler
* Finish the [[#Setting up|set up]]
Once you are installed, instructions about for [[#Starting|starting]] and [[#Stopping|stopping]] are below.
For reference, Box Of Stops is un-fussy about the version of Windows you use - Vista or later is fine. And the machine spec needed is fairly modest - it's likely your Windows install has at least the spec of a Raspberry Pi. Due to the multi-threading in Box Of Stops, we recommend at least a dual-core processor, but even 1Gb of RAM is fine.
[[File:Java-download-firefox.png|300px]]
After that, please install Java using the default options. The only exception to this is that at the moment the installer kindly offers to set Yahoo as your homepage and default search provider - there is no need to accept this.
[[File:Java-install.png|300px]] [[File:Java-yahoo.png|300px]]
== Installing Python ==
Similarly, if you don't already have Python, this can be downloaded for Windows from [https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ here]. The latest version of Python 3 is recommended, but because [[#Downloading PortMidi|PortMidi]] below is 32 bit, please also ensure you download the 32 bit version of Python. I.e. the "Windows x86 executable installer" instead of the "Windows x86-64 executable installer".
Please ensure Also, when installing Python , please ensure that you tick the option to add it to your PATH:
[[File:Install-python-on-path.png|300px]]
== Starting ==
Start To launch Box Of Stops, please start a [[Windows Command Prompt|command prompt]] and type the following commands:
cd C:\boxofstops
java -jar boxofstops.jar
(where C:\boxofstops is the directory you copied <tt>portmidi.dll</tt> and <tt>boxofstops.jar</tt> toin the [[#Setting up|previous step]]).
When you first launch Box Of Stops on Windows, you may get a prompt from Windows Firewall. Naturally, you will need to ask it to unblock network connections, to allow Box Of Stops to receive a connection from a web browser:
[[File:Windows-firewall.png|300px]]
This will then take a moment to launch, after which you can [http://boxofstops.com/using connect] in the normal way.
Notes:
* If you see a message about being unable to allocate an address - <tt>java.net.BindException: Address already in use: bind</tt> - please read about changing the [[Server port]]
* At the moment there is no option to [[Auto start]] Box Of Stops under Windows
== Stopping ==