# Installing MESS

This section deals with installing the MESS application. It includes where you can get MESS from, where to put it and what to expect when you extract it.

## Download and uncompress MESS

Download the latest Windows version of MESS from the homepage here.

Unzip the file into a directory of your choice. MESS is distributed in a ZIP file format so depending on what version of Windows you have you may need a tool like Winzip.

## MESS folders and files

When you have uncompressed the ZIP file you should see some folders and a few other files. Here is an example of what MESS version 0.105 (mess0105b.zip) looks like once it is uncompressed (actually some of them could appear after you run MESS the first time). The latest version should be similar. However, if any folder is missing, and you need it, you can simply create it and MESS will use it as described below.

Below is a brief explanation each folder.

artwork | Background artwork files for certain systems, e.g. overlays for vectrex games.
cfg | Configuration files for different systems.
cheat | Used for cheats for different games.
ctrlr | Used for custom controller configurations files.
hash | Contains files that MESS uses to identify software images.
ini | Where MESS saves its initialization files used for different systems.
memcard | Memory card files for selected games.
nvram | NVram files used to store system settings on certain games.
roms | The folder where you put the system ROM images.
snap | Screenshots made at emulation time
software | This is where you store your games and software.
tools | Contains some programs used to manipulate disk images.

If you prefer to use different directories for any of the above, you simply have to edit the corresponding entry in mess.ini.

Below is a brief explanation each file.

chdman.exe | This is a command line utility which allows to create blank Hard Disks in the CHD format supported by MESS, for use with emulated systems which use Hard Disk (e.g. ti99_4a).
imgtool.exe | This is a command line utility to handle different file formats supported by MESS.
mess.chm | MESS help file, to be opened from the GUI when you click on 'Help'.
mess.exe | This is the command line version of the emulator.
messui.exe | This is the GUI version of the emulator.
messlib.dll | This is the .dll shared by the command line and GUI versions, i.e. the core of the emulator.
sysinfo.dat | This is a support file including informations about Features, Usage and History of the emulated systems.
wimgtool.exe | This is the GUI version of imgtool.exe