Installing Toontown

The first thing you should do before signing up is to make sure your computer is compatible with Toontown. Quoting Disney's website, Disney recommends a computer with the following specifications as a minimum:

• Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP
• 233 MHz or faster CPU
• 128MB RAM (memory)
• 100MB free space on your "\Program Files" hard drive (most likely C:\)
• A video card with 3-D acceleration and at least 8MB of Video RAM
• A 56K modem, or a faster Internet connection
• Microsoft DirectX 7.0
• Microsoft Internet Explorer v. 5.01 or higher

Toontown does 'not' run on Macintosh or Linux (or any Unix system) at the moment. Also, note that it will not run on computers running Windows 95 or older.

The Toontown installer will check to make sure your PC meets the requirements automatically, so you don't really have to worry about that. However, if you must get the information manually, click on the start button, and choose "Run". Type in "DXDiag" and press 'Enter'. You should be able to get your processor speed, memory amount, video card type and memory, and other fancy stuff.

To find out how much free space your hard disk has and what version of Internet Explorer you're running, however, you'll need to take a different route. Click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and choose "System Information". You should be able to take note of your Internet Explorer version and free disk space there.

Okay, now we're ready to install Toontown into the PC. Log on as a power user if you're on 2000/XP, fire up Internet Explorer, and head over to http://play.toontown.com . Click on the big red "Play" button, and you'll be shown some Terms of Agreement. You should read most of it. Afterwards, click "I Agree", and in the next window, click "Next". You'll be asked to download a plugin to test the system. Click "Yes", and your system will be tested. Note that while the test is going on, your PC's screen might flicker and/or the PC might appear to freeze up. If it does freeze up, don't panic! It's normal, and the PC should unfreeze shortly. Once the PC regains it's sanity, you'll be brought to a page asking you to create your account. Fill in the fields, and click "Next". You'll then be asked for an E-Mail address and an E-Mail Confirmation. Enter your e-mail address into both fields. You may uncheck the little checkbox at the bottom if you do not wish to receive any "Sellbot" e-mail from Disney. Click next, and click on the red "Free Trial" button to proceed. You'll be prompted to download another ActiveX plugin. Click "yes", and this plugin will install Toontown onto your PC. The installation will take anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours, but you don't need to wait for the whole game to finish downloading before you can play. You should be able to get started once a window pops up and you see 6 empty boxes. Now, the real fun begins.