I never been so confused about installation in my life. I consider myself to be a expert, if not advanced programmer. But my expertise is mostly in web development. I've done window's applications but Ive never set up an outside library. So I am completely lost.

I am using version 4.2 (why?) because that's the version the book I am reading is using so I decided that would be best. I opened the docs folder and read the txt file and it gave a bunch of functions so I am not sure if I am suppose to put those functions somewhere.

The book says to add dependency to visual studio express 2005. find and att the allegro.lib file. I am using express 2008 and I can't find where to add dependencies nore can I find the allegro.lib file. if someone could just briefly summarize what i am suppose to do. maybe that might help me out.

Could someone help me out!!

I just updated my original post. as of adding examples to an outside file and tweaking it. I am not sure how that will help. And month or 2 is a long time.

Don't do that. The thread will make no sense in the long run. Are you talking about installing allegro in the first place or starting an allegro application project in MSVC?

I don't know anything about MSVC and I have a peculiar pleasant feeling because of that. I've installed allegro with MinGW and Dev-Cpp. It's very straight forward. People say Dev-Cpp is crap. But so is allegro. So? You can still do wonderful things with them.

I appreciate the responses guys. I am trying to install allegro for Microsoft C++ Express Edition 2008. I actually found a great tutorial but it's not entirely accurate

http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Install_Allegro_4.9.x_Binary_for_MSVC_2008_Express

in the provided link it says to add the path allegro/lib to the "additional library directories".

The only problem with that is there is no lib directory. atleast not in the 4.9 versions I tried to download.

I downloaded 4.9.15, 4.2.2, 4.9.15.1, 4.9.17 (I downloaded that twice just to make sure) No lib folders. I did however see the lib folders in version less then 4.9.x . But that went against the tutorial.

Later on in the tutorial it says

Under Configuration Properties > Linker > Input add "allegro-4.9.15.lib allegro_font-4.9.15.lib allegro_ttf-4.9.15.lib"

I can't find any of the lib files (allegro-4.9.15.lib). Could any one tell me if I am doing something right

Thanks guys again I appreciate the help. I really would like to get started on learning some of this stuff.

I was afraid of that. well thanks for clearing that up for me. I will try harder to get a folder that has both includes, and lib folders in it. But what about

Under Configuration Properties > Linker > Input add "allegro-4.9.15.lib allegro_font-4.9.15.lib allegro_ttf-4.9.15.lib"

where can I find "allegro-4.9.15.lib allegro_font-4.9.15.lib allegro_ttf-4.9.15.lib" so I know how to place it in. also. is it possible that someone is formiluar with adding older version (4.2.2) to MSVC++ Express so I can go off the book ?? thanks

I am new to game design. I was wondering if anyone understand step 5(compiling) on that tutorial. If I understood that I'd be able to finish installing Allegro (4.9.17) to MSVC++ 08 Express and I might be able to help.

Also, http://allegro5.org/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=category&id=13:4917-binaries&Itemid=53, this link should take you to a place where you can download Allegro 4.9.17 and it had both the lib and include files, but to open it I had to download a program called "BitZipper".

EDIT: You want to download "allegro-4.9.17-msvc-static-bin.7z".

"Step 5 - Compiling

Before you try to compile we still need to move some files about. Open up your project folder (Default location is something like this: "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects"). [found this part]

Once you have your projects folder open you will want to copy over the font file times.tff [what is times.tff?]. Open up the "\Debug" folder inside your project folder and re-copy the font there also (For some reason if you compile inside MSVC without having the font file in your project folder, it wont find it in the folder where your .exe is so keep it in both for now).

You will also need copy the contents of "C:\Allegro\dll" folder to your "\Debug" folder. You don't need the dlls your not using but better to be safe than sorry. [I can't find the "dll"'s]

Now hit compile and hopefully a black window should appear with 2 lines of texts saying "Allegro 5 Rocks!". And that's it, Allegro should now be working in MSVC++ Express 2008."

The 4.9.17 binary release is static only, you don't need dlls.

Try putting it in the main project directory with your source code instead. I don't use MSVC, but that's where you have to put files like that with every other IDE I've ever used.