During this manual I will assume the following ground rules:

• You're using the latest LD4DStudio (get it here)
• Default settings are in place.
• The official English language file is loaded.
• You're familiar with the basics of the LDraw system.
• The latest LDraw library is installed (get it here).
• (Optional) POV-Ray 3.6 (or higher) is installed (get it here) and it's the default handler for .pov files.

Installation

Before we can begin you'll need to install the application, so download the latest setup and run it. After installation, you start the application from the Start menu.

When the application is started for the first time, you will be presented with a short license agreement. It's a very friendly and no nonsense license, but you most agree if you want to use LD4DStudio. If you do not agree, or want to use LD4DStudio in a way the license forbids, it's forbidden to use LD4DStudio.

Whenever LD4DStudio lacks information about the LDraw library, it will try to locate it on startup. It does this by checking the existence of a parts and p folder in a number of common locations. If no suitable location was detected, the application will ask you to locate your LDraw library location manually.

When the library has been found the application will try to determine it's version, if this version is lower then the one used at the time of this LD4DStudio's version release you will be hinted at this fact.

Having the latest LDraw library is critical for watching/using the sample projects.

Also on first run you will be asked if you would like to enable online information checking. Select yes if you are always online (without a proxy) and like to know about new versions when they become available.

Alternative 'clean' version

If you're an advanced windows user and don't want to run a setup while 'checking' LD4DStudio out. You could download the archive version instead. You can then decompress it's contents at the location of your choice. The application will work from that location by running LD4DStudio.exe. By default, LD4DStudio will not store any information in the windows registry or even outside it's own directory.