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Kiddix Platform Installation Guide for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

Click here to see a screenshot guide of each step.

1. Boot your system into Windows Vista.
   
   
   
2. You will need to open the Disk Management utility.  To open, navigate the following:
   
   • Click on the 'Start' button in the lower left corner of your screen
   • Open 'Control Panel'
   • Select 'System and Maintenance'
   • Select ' Administrative Tools'
   • Select 'Computer Management' and when prompted to continue select yes.
   • Select 'Disk Management'
   • It should say that it is 'Loading disk configuration information'.   It may take a few moments to load.
   
   
3. The Disk Management utility should show the available disks on your system.  A typical machine will have one disk (C:), that is listed as "Disk 0" on the lower portion of the Disk Management window.
   
   
   
4. • Right click with the mouse on the drive you would like to resize (in this case Disk 0)
   • Select 'Shrink Volume'
   • This will bring up a screen that says 'Shrink C:' that has a few options.
     
   
   
5. • On the 'Shrink C:' window, there will be a spinbox that says 'Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB.
   • Select the amount of space you would like to allocate for the Kiddix Platform in the spinbox.  The  number displayed here is in MB **.  10240 MB is equivalent to 10 GB *  -- (1 GB = 1024 MB).
     
     We recommend that a Kiddix Platform installation have at least 10 GB of space to ensure your child doesn't run out of room while using the system.  5 GB (5120 MB) is the minimum, and of course you may choose to allocate more than 10 GB of space.
     
     * GB = Giga Byte
     ** MB = Mega Byte
   
   
   
6. Click the 'Shrink' button to shrink your Windows Vista partition.  This will take a few moments while the partition is shrinking.
   
   
   
7. • At this point you have successfully created some free space on your harddrive for Kiddix.
   • Insert Kiddix Platform CD-ROM and reboot the machine.
   • Follow the directions in the Quick Start Guide to boot your machine off the CD-ROM.
     
   • Once the machine finishes booting off the CD-ROM the Kiddix Installer will appear on the screen.
     
     
     
     
8. • The Kiddix Installer will show the 'Existing free space' on the drive.
   • In our example we can see there is 10.01 GB free.  This is because we resized the drive to have 10 GB free space and there was 0.01 GB existing free space beforehand.
     
   • Under the 'Install Size' spinbox you will not want to enter a number greater than the number reported by 'Existing Free Space'.
   • If you enter a number greater than the 'Existing Free Space' you risk resizing your Windows Vista installation which can harm your files.
     
   • We recommend that you choose a number that is slightly less than the 'Existing Free Space'.  Here we will choose 10.00 GB (slightly less than 10.01 GB).
   
   
   
   
9. Stop!  Important step:  Before continuing with the installation process, review the install plan and make sure it DOES NOT include the following as a step:
   
   "Resize current operating system to make room for Kiddix"
   
   If the installer prompts you that it will resize the current operating system, verify that your install size is less than the current free disk space.
   
   Do not continue the install process until the installer no longer wants to resize the current operating system.  Continuing may cause corruption to files on your hard drive.
   
   Please note: Versions of Kiddix released prior to 12/4/07 contains an occasional installation bug where it will decide to resize the existing operating system even if there is enough free space.  If this occurs, select expert options, and under the "Install to" options, select the option "Limit to specific partition", and then select the option "Automatic".  This will correct the issue.  This problem has been resolved in our 1.0.14 release.
   
   
   
10. From this point the directions are the same as those found in the Quick Start Guide.