Downloading And Installing EAC And LAME

First of all you'll need to download EAC (Exact Audio Copy). Go to the EAC home page and download to your desktop the latest version which, at the time of writing, is V0.95 prebeta 5. Although EAC is essentially regarded as being free (as I've stated on a previous page) it is infact cardware. Please read the registration page at the EAC site which explains that Andre (the author) would like you to simply send him a postcard from your hometown.

Before we start configuring EAC we will also get the LAME MP3 encoder. Go to Rarewares and proceed to the MP3 section (link at the top). Download LAME 3.97.2 stable bundle, to your desktop. Do not download the lastest alpha's or later stable bundles unless you know that they are reliable.

Now we have the neccessary files (eac095pb5.zip and lame3.97b2.zip) we need to unzip them and place the contents of the zip files into a folder.

Goto My Computer > C: > Program Files^*1. Right click in the white space near a folder (do not click or hightlight a folder!) and choose New > Folder.

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^*1 You can install EAC and LAME anywhere you like. But, the novice should stick to the suggestions in this guide.

You should now be at the bottom of the Program Files listings and see a folder called New Folder. You now need to rename this folder to EAC. Type this in immediately since windows will default to allowing you to instantly rename this folder. If this doesn't happen, left click on the New Folder so that it is highlighted and press F2. This will allow you to rename the folder.

Find the .zip files you've downloaded onto your desktop (EAC and LAME). If you're using a version of Windows (XP, 2000 etc) that can open the .zip files you can simply double click on the file to open the .zip. Otherwise you'll need to find some software to open the .zip files. You can find many such softwares by simply searching Google.

Open the EAC zip file (it will be called eac095pb5.zip, or similar) and drag and drop the entire contents into the EAC folder we created above.

Treat the LAME zip file in a similar manner. This time though, we just need to drag and drop the file named lame.exe into the EAC folder.

Now we have all the files to run EAC, we can now proceed to Configuring EAC pt1