Xtreamer Support System

The installer for OpenELEC isn't like other installers; wiith OpenELEC, the first thing you do is create a USB key that you can install from - much like you would traditionally install sofware from a CD. This installer key is what we're going to createin this first part.

Things you'll need:

• A Windows computer (your normal PC)
• A USB key to use as your installer
• The latest release of Ultra compatible OpenELEC

Once it's downloaded, you'll have a file that ends in .tar.bz2 - this file contains the OpenELEC installer files. You'll need a program that can extract the files from this file, I'd suggest you use 7zip (mainly because it's free) so get it here then extract the files from the archive.

Once the files have extracted, enter the folder you extracted to and you should see lots of files and folders. The file we're most interested in is create_installstick.bat which will create an installer USB key.

Insert your installer USB key (if you're going to boot your OpenELEC install from a USB key, you'll need two keys - one for the installer and one to install to).

Note: make sure there's nothing important on it as it'll get wiped as part of the process.

Now, double-click on the batch file and you should get a new window appear.

Since I'm running Windows XP, I'll type n then hit enter. I'll then be prompted for the drive letter of the USB key to write the installer to.

After a quick check in My Computer, I can see my USB key is E (my CD-ROM drive is D). So I enter the following and press enter:

e:

The installer now asks me to insert the USB key. We've already done that, so just hit enter. The installer now wipes the key and copies a set of new files to it.

After it finishes, the installer window will disappear. Don't worry - that's normal. Have a look at your USB key in Windows explorer quickly - you should see the following files if all has gone well:

Insert your installation USB key into your powered-off Ultra. Start the computer and make sure it boots from the USB key - you may need to change a setting in the BIOS or simply press F8 or F11 on boot, but that depends on your computer.

If all goes well, you should get a few messages then see a blue curses screen welcoming you to the installation program:

Click OK to get the installer menu:

We're going to carry out a quick install, so just hit enter to get to the next screen. This next screen shows the locations it's possible to install OpenELEC to. My machine is going to boot from a 2G USB stick I found laying around and there's no other disks in the machine (my media all comes from a network file server) so I've only got one option.

If you've got more than one disk, make sure you select the right one as the installer will wipe the disk.

Press OK to select the disk:

The installer will now go away and wipe, partition and format the disk for you. After that, it will copy over the OpenELEC files and make the disk bootable. Expect this to take a few minutes:

Once it's finished, the installer will take you back to the main menu. We don't need anything else here, so use the right cursor to select 'Reboot' and hit enter.

When the machine reboots, remove the installer USB key as we don't need it any longer. As long as you've got the system to boot from the media you just installed to, your computer should now boot straight into OpenELEC.

You can now remove the installer files from the USB key - you've finished!

*****

You can follow the development our our forum's OpenELEC section.

If you want to install several OS on your Ultra, please refer to this guide.