How to install Cosmos

Important Notes

• If you have previously installed a user kit, please uninstall it first. See [Older releases](https://github.com/CosmosOS/Cosmos/wiki/Older releases/)
• Visual Studio 2013 and older are no longer supported.
• Because of the system requirements of Visual Studio 2015, Vista and older are not supported.

How to install Cosmos

Difficulty: Easy

Introduction

What is the Userkit?

The Userkit is what you want to download if you begin with Cosmos and don't want to make changes to Cosmos core. It contains all the required project files for creating an OS and is regularly updated. Latest version is 20150130. It's in fact the installer version of one devkit version.

What is the Devkit?

The Devkit (for Development kit) is the thing to use if you want/need to make changes to Cosmos internals. It's in fact the source code of Cosmos. It contains the Userkit installer.

Pre-requisite Software

Userkit and Devkit

• Visual Studio 2015 (Community edition is supported) Download

• .NET Framework 4.5 Download

• VMWare Player (Free) Download or Workstation Download.

• Note if you have win 10 to might need .NET Framework 4.5 Download

Devkit only

• VS 2015 SDK Not a separate download, when you install VS 2015, check "Common Tools -> Visual Studio Extensibility Tools"
• SQL Server Express 2012 LocalDB 32-bit / 64-bit.
• Inno Quick Start Pack (with preprocessor) Download
• VMware VIX API 1.11 Download

Installing Cosmos

Userkit

1. Download the latest release of Cosmos (download the exe file)
2. Wait for the download to complete then run the installer. Allow it to run as admin.
   • Make sure VS2015 is NOT running when you do this.
   • Make sure VMWare isn't running.
   • Make sure you aren't about to do a Windows Update restart or something similarly stupid...
3. Click "Next" then "Install"
   • (if you fail this step you should give up now...)
4. Wait for the install to progress. (Tip: At the end the installer may look like it is stalling, it is still doing something, just in the background)
5. When finished it will very obviously say it has finished and have a "Finish" button - click the "Finish" button.
6. Cosmos should now be installed. Follow other tutorials to find out how to create your first OS.

Devkit

1. Getting the source

Once you have all the prerequisites, you may download the source using one of the following methods:

File Type	Stable	Dev
.zip	v2015-01-30	Latest-zip
.tar.gz	v2015-01-30	Latest-tar
git clone	Clone (see for Dev) and then git reset --hard 90169ed	git clone https://github.com/CosmosOS/Cosmos.git
Github for Windows	N/A	Open in app

2. Building and installing

(if you have already installed) If you edited the Cosmos DevKit source using Cosmos.sln, be sure to set solution config to Debug x86.

1. Make sure Visual Studio is NOT running.
2. In the root directory of the DevKit files you downloaded earlier, run install-VS2015.bat.
3. Wait for the install to progress. (Tip: At the end the installer may look like it is stalling, it is still doing something, just in the background)
4. VS will open with Cosmos loaded. You can now make changes to core assemblies of Cosmos. If you don't want to, you can close this VS window and create a new Cosmos project as with the user kit.