XXHighEnd

August 2012 Edit : Notice that this guide was written in the Vista era with the XXHighEnd version concerned also from that time. But all will still be fairly well understandable.

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Here is a guide on installing XXHighEnd for people who may be afraid of doing things wrong. Besides you can't anyway, it's always good to know that you're on the right track.
So, let's see what this is all about.

First a remark of some importance : The below all assumes Vista, which is because that OS requires some additional stuff (possibly new for you). On the other hand, XP also requires additional stuff opposed to Vista (and up), but it is expected this is more common to you. In either case, there's no explicit Install for Dummies for XP. Of course a lot of the below still applies, but in the end you will get involved with stuff as written in here : Demo version, Install notes and getting an Activation Key (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=11.0).

And oh, note that when we talk Vista, this is the same as Windows2008 server and also Windows7 procedures will be the same. 64 bit versions, no difference.

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If you foresee to be quite comfortable with the below to begin with, here's a small summerization on how to order your folders for the various versions of XXHighEnd :
XXHighEnd installation -- an orderly approach (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1150.msg10110#msg10110).
It doesn't use the exact same samples from those more below, but it very well represents how to go about with this.

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Let's prepare our Vista PC

In order to let all run smoothly lateron, there's one thing really necessary : shut off UAC (User Account Control);
UAC is a feature new since Vista, and it tries to determine whether you're authorized to do stuff at various security levels. Well, besides you'll get crazy of the ever recurring question whether you are sure to perform whatever it is you of course want to perform, it really prevents you from many things to do at all.
Let's go to our Control Panel, and choose this one :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd User Accounts.png)

This is the Classic view which will bring us directly where we want. However, in your case you may need to choose this one first :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Parental controls.png)

and after choosing that one, choose this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd UserAccounts 2.png)

In either of above cases, you should have ended up here :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Turn UAC On Off.png)

and after clicking where the mouse pointer is, untick the checkbox shown below :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Turn UAC Off.png)

After clicking OK the system will now ask you to reboot. Just do that.
Right. Our PC is prepared now for the technical stuff as needed. Later, when you feel you're not a dummy at all, you may go here to avoid unnecessary disk IO's (Input/Output) from Vista : How I tweaked my Vista virtually dead (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=548.0).


Getting XXHighEnd

Yep, we really start at the beginning.
Well, knowing that no Activation Key or whatever is needed to get things going, we start at the download of an XXHighEnd version. All old versions can be downloaded just the same, but of course we want the newest. For that we go to the very same board we're at now, "Download Area and Release Notes". Might you have missed that, here's a picture of it :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Install Board.png)

Apart from the "stickey" topics in orange at the top, below it show the XXHighEnd versions (ok, we call them "models" here). With the default settings of your forum parameters in here, the newest model is always at the top. Of course the highest model number is the newest, so no problems to be expected here.

In order to get to the download, we click the link, in this case where the little hand shows.
Of course, at the time you are reading this new versions may have showed up above the one we're using here.

What we see in there are the Release Notes, or in other words, what has been changed compared to the before last version. Here's the top part of it :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Release Note.png)

As you can see, the very first line tells us that the download is at the very bottom of this text. This is always the case.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Download.png)

Yep, there it is. Now let's click that link. This will pop up :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Save File.png)

Right now you have two options : one of them is Open the download file, and the other one is Save it to your harddisk.
When you use the latter, this means that the WinZip file itself will be stored on your harddisk, and when - could be months later - you want to reinstall the particular version, you can do it from this WinZip file on your harddisk, instead of downloading it from here again. Note though that all old versions will remain available here. This by itself is because a newer version may not satisfy you for sound quality, and you can compare with an older version, although you threw it away from your harddisk long ago.

Allright. Let's suppose for now you used the Save button, so the WinZip file is on your harddisk somewhere. Somewhere ? it may be a good idea to bring some structure in this, because you will notice later that many of these download files will be stored on your harddisk, and it is always good to be able to find them easily.
But before we proceed with this, here is an important part first :

Unless you will be trying a bit with PC playback for the first time, nobody will have the music files on the harddisk of the Operating System (OS). In the end that will never fit, and besides that it is good behavior not to do so. But there is another reason, far more important for what we are doing : Sound Quality. For best Sound Quality the XXHighEnd programs should be on the OS harddisk and the music files just should not. Later you may learn why, but for now it is just important to start follow these rules, and it means that the program files as contained in the WinZip file must go to the OS harddisk. The WinZip file itself can go to wherever you want (we'll learn that shortly), and for convenience we now say that the WinZip file goes to the OS harddisk just the same.

Now, let's assume the drive letter of the OS harddisk is c: (and note again it is really not important where you store this download file). You could make a folder in the root of c: like "XXDownloads". You can do this in advance of getting to the stage of the last picture above, or do that on the fly. Let's assume the latter :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Save Zip file.png)

As you can see at the mouse arrow, the file name is there by default, and there's no reason to change it (but you can do it if you want).
At the left you can see we chose the XXDownloads folder to store it in.
Pressing the Save button, gives us this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd download complete.png)

The most convenient thing we can do now, is *not* using Open where the mouse pointer is, but use Open Folder. This brings us here :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Saved Zip file.png)

At this stage it is time to think about where we will be storing the individual program files contained in that WinZip file;
First off it is good to know that we are not really "installing" things as such, meaning that no mangling of our "Registry" is in order. While this is a good reason by itself, it allows us to have as many XXHighEnd versions installed next to eachother as we want, and we can all run them subsequently without further changes elsewhere. Keep in mind : this is important when we want to compare the sound quality of different versions.

With the above it is implied that we now need a nice structure for our different versions, so we can easily reach them when necessary.
Keep in mind, now it *is* important to use the OS harddisk. As before, we assume c: but if this is different for you, use the driver letter concerned.
Ok, let's create a new folder in the root for that : c:\XXHighEnd\

When done, it is time to "un zip" that WinZip file. Look at above picture again, and rightclick on the file just above the mouse pointer.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Extract All.png)

This is what we see, and we are going to click on Extract All.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Browse.png)

The default which shows is not what we want. So we will be using the Browse button. Remember, we want to go to our c:\XXHighEnd folder.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Make new folder.png)

Right, there it is. Now, don't click OK yet, because we need a special sub folder for this version.
Let's see; This is officially called version 0.9x-7 (see the earlier screen with all the versions), so why not make a sub folder just like that. Allright, let's click Make New Folder, but be sure to first have clicked on the XXHighEnd folder so that it is highlighted, and the new folder will be a sub folder of it.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd 0.9x-7.png)

Type the 0.9x-7 there ... and click OK.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Select Destination.png)

That's what we want. Now we can click Extract.

And here is the result :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Extracted files.png)

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Watch out : The below outlay about how to activate a new XXHighEnd version only applies for versions older than 0.9z-7;
0.9z-7 and above must be explicitly activated by means of applying your Activation Code (which is in the file you see below) to the field for it in the Undemo Area (click the Activate field you see in the top left of the XXHighEnd screen to get there).

Here is a side note for anyone who might re-do an initial install for the purpose of a better structure, while the initial install is an activated version;
Of course this is very much the same to installing a newer version next to an existing one. Look here :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Activated.png)

The mouse pointer is at the file containing your Activation Data, and in this case this within the folder which contained the activated XXHighEnd folder (hence an "old" folder). You could compare with the above, and see that this file is not there after our download and install activities.
Now, rightclick on that file and choose Copy.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Copy Dat.png)

Then go to your newly created XXHighEnd folder as performed in the above, move the mouse to the white space at the right, perform rightclick and choose paste.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Paste Dat.png)

Now you're good to go with the new install, and it will be Activated.

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The "install" actually has been done, and XXHighEnd is ready to use. However, for our conveniency we must arrange for a few more little things.
First of all we want a Desktop Icon. This is easy. Richtclick at the XXHighEnd.exe file the mousepointer is at in above picture :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Send to desktop.png)

... and choose/click Send to Desktop as shown above.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Desktop Icon.png)

Right. There it is. However, it is good to think about the future, and what will happen when you install a next version *and* you want to keep on having acces to the old versions. Keep in mind : when you follow the above procedure a next time, you will be having a second Desktop Icon for XXHighEnd. So why not neatly denote the version in the shortcut (that's what it is name. In order to do that, click on the text right under the Icon, and slowly click a second time (so, not double click, because that would start XXHighend).

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Change Shortcut Name.png)

As you see, now the Icon has a unique text, and it will differentiate with the others, might they be there in the future.

So, done ? well, we're getting close for this "install" part;
What about dragging our "active" (meaning the one we will be using all the time) XXHighEnd Icon to the taskbar ...

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Drag to Taskbar.png)

... and drop it there. We have one-click access now, and while several other versions may recide on the desktop, this is the version we always use.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Active version.png)


Get ready to start XXHighend for the first time

Although we can do it later, it is good to prepare here for one or two other things, which is in the same line as the structured setup of our install folders above;

XXHighend will use "data" which actually is your data. This is about the momentary Playlist contents (at really using XXHighEnd of course), your own saved Playlists, and more stuff which really is yours. Well, thinking again about our nice different folders to store the XXHighEnd programs in, we really need a dedicated folder for that data. Later, XXHighEnd will ask for this folder. So why not create it right now.
Let's go to our XXHighEnd folder and create a new sub folder in there :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd XX Data folder.png)

In the above we rightclicked in the empty area at the left, and as the mouse pointer denotes, we choose for the creation of a new folder.
Any name is good as long as we lateron tell that name to XXHighEnd as being the "data folder".

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd XXData folder.png)

So here it is, and it's called XXData. Later, we will see that "our" data will be stored in there.
And as you can see, any new XXHighEnd version will be stored beside it. It is unrelated. But, we still have all nicely stored under the main XXHighEnd folder.

Now let's jump back to the story about the XXHighEnd program to be on the OS harddisk, and the music files just not. If you have the music files on the OS disk right now, and you have another disk available, it is a good thing to at least copy a handful of albums to that other disk in orther to have it right for the next outlays. If you do not have another disk available, bad luck for now and it really is not the biggest problem. However, there is one other very necessary thing : the structure of those music files. So let's look at how it should be :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Music folder structure.png)

Here drive G: denotes the harddisk, and as you can see it contains root folders like MP3, FLAC and WAV, under WAV there's things like Lounge and Percussion, and within the Lounge as selected here, the album sub folders recide. If we summarize this, it looks like

G:
--WAV
----Lounge
------Album

Now, it is not important at all whether G: = G:, WAV = WAV and Lounge = Lounge, but the *depth* is ! To make this clear, here's another good one :

G:
--Music
----Lounge
------Album

and it shows that this is really not about WAV or anything, but just the depth.
This is for one reason only : finding coverart automatically, and merely, find the correct coverart. If the structure is less deep all kind of files reciding in the root will be denoted as coverart, and your coverart will be a mess (and just wrong).

Now let's assume you don't have this right, and you merely have something like

G:
--Album1
--Album2

so really two levels are missing. What to do ? Well, this is not difficult;
First create a new root folder, e.g. Music.
Under that, create a folder All my Albums.
(and keep in mind, this is consistent with the last given example; your situation can be different of course).
Now look at this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd All my Albums.png)

In the left panel the new structure shows. It is still empty !
At the right the old contents of the root shows, which got there because I clicked at the drive.

Now we're going to select everything in the right panel which happens by clicking a first item, followed by ctrl-a. everything gets highlighted now :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Everything selected.png)

Now drag the whole (highlighted) selection from the right panel to the left panel onto the All my Albums folder. Be careful to do it right, which is visible like this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Move to All my Albums.png)

Note that in the end I selected 4 albums only, but it is about the indication Vista shows that I will be dropping onto the correct folder.
After this everything will be in the correct structure for XXHighEnd, and it took a fraction of a second only.

And this really concludes all of our preparations !


Starting XXHighEnd for the first time

Well, remember the Desktop Icon we created ? if it's still on thee Desktop let's double click it; If it's on the taskbar by now, single click there.

This is the first what happens :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Security warning.png)

Click cancel when you never want to run XXHighEnd, or Run if you do afterall.
If you choose to pick Run, better untick the "Always ask before opening this file", or otherwise the question pops up the next time (and as long as the checkbox keeps being ticked).

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Demo.png)

Oops, that's right. Of course we didn't get ourselves an Activation Code, which only can be done via XXHighEnd itself. But that's for later and not for this small guide.
Anyway, this message keeps on popping up as long as XXHighEnd is not activated. And keep in mind already : once we will be using remote control or keyboard shortcuts while XXHighEnd runs in the so called "Unattended Mode", this will be really bugging us. But again, for later.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Demo Core Appointment.png)

This one too, is related to the Demo version, and it actually tells you that XXHighEnd is not allowed to perform the usual settings according to multi core processors (or multi processor systems). Not much to do about it while in Demo mode.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Restart AutoHotkey.png)

This is a message which could have been avoided by some more preparation, but it is really not important for now. We'll deal with that later.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Settings got lost.png)

Hey, something is showing up really. Ok, this message is a general message which informs you that stuff like screen size settings could not be restored, and whether this is a first time install or an update, XXHighEnd doesn't know at this time, but it is obvious that no previous settings are there for us. So we answer No.
For later : At an update the answer should be Yes, unless this creates problems (which will show) and No will avoid those problems.
At any time No is answered, your configuration settings have to be performed again. We'll see a few of them hereunder.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Set your settings.png)

Yes, thanks. We will !

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Initialize programs.png)

Oh help, what now ? Well, what actually is going to happen is that each "helper" program is going to be started once in a dummy fashion, just because it will incur for a message like we saw before :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Security warning 2.png)

This way, they won't show up unexpectedly, or even under the hood without a possibility to answer the question (which is a small Vista bug). For the several programs passing by this message will appear (it could be 10 or more of them !). As before, always uncheck the checkbox and choose Run.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Not in Program Files.png)

What's up ? well, nothing important for us anymore. This message just tells us that intalling in the Program Files folder should *not* be done, because Vista security issues house there. But we already arranged for that, didn't we ?

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Set Music Root.png)

Aha, that must be about that Music root folder we created before. Allright, we'll do that in a few seconds.

Well, that appears to be the last message. What's next ? Right, that Music Root.
For that, we go to the Settings Area, denoted by the Settings tab.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Set Music Root to Music.png)

Above the "Browse For Folder" screen, you see the question for the Music root. After clicking the little button to the right of that, this Browse For Folder screen appears. Now, let's click our "Music" folder and click OK.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Data folder.png)

Yahoo ! that worked.
Well, when we're at it anyway, let's pick our earlier created data folder too. This was on c:
Btw, see that when nothing is done about this, the current install folder will be used for it, which is the most inconvenient at getting a next version.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Choose data folder.png)

Done too.
Next. let's select the possibilities of our DAC. As we see, 16 bits and 44.1KHz is the default. It can't harm to let this be because any DAC can do it, but we really want to utilize more if there, which XXHighEnd sure will do .. if there.
Just pick the most your DAC can do.

Important : After picking your DAC Is setting, a message will occur :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd DAC Needs.png)

which tells that this is going to happen :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd DAC Needs 2.png)

or in other words, 32 bits will be sent to the DAC. Just leave it like that ! 24 bits is always wrong, until someone proves it is not.
Either way, never mind !

Well, although further settings are a bit to your own imagination (but see the ToolTips on them), one last thing is important to get some sound from it all :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Set Volume.png)

Although at first you saw the above red area around the volume control, now it looks like this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Set Volume 2.png)

which is because our higher rated (24 bit) DAC settings tells us high digital attenuation is better allowed than it would with the 16 bit DAC. Never mind that for now. What is important, is that this (default) setting will bring us no sound; The attenuation is far too high. Now :

If we are using a pre-amplifier and use the volume knob of it as always, we have to slide the digital volume all the way up to -0dB.
But if we don't use a pre-amplifier, we must carefully slide up the volume because otherwise it may be way too loud. And that's exactly why the volume slider starts off so low.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Ready.png)


Play time !

Well, ready ? click the Library tab, and see your albums show up in the Library Area after you press the Search button as indicated above.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Drag right edge.png)

In the mean time I selected another folder (the "..." button besides the "lounge" entry at the bottom) because in here obviously some things had to be faked, and while I clicked on the top most coverart, I dragged the right edge of the form to the right, where more things may show up than the main coverart only. It just depends what you put in your album folders for coverart, or possible text - or log files.

And for when you are up to Galleries, note that these too must be on the OS disk. This again for later.

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Load Selection.png)

Although several ways are there to fill the Playlist Area with music tracks, I selected two albums in the Library Area (click a first, ctrl-click (pressing the "ctrl" key and click while that key is being pressed down) a second to preserve the first), if we click the Load button now, all the tracks from the selected albums will be loaded in the Playlist Area.

Now, before pressing Play, there's really one more thing to do : choose the Sound Device we want to use;

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Choose Sound Device.png)

So, click the combobox in the Settings Area, and choose your Sound Device. Done ? then let's see how the Playlist Area looks like now :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Play.png)

Right. The first track is selected, so that's where playback will start.
Keep in mind that tracks can be selected like this :

(http://www.stordiau.nl/XXHighEnd\XXHighEnd Play Selection.png)

and that only the selected tracks will play. Selecting -as before- goes by means of click and cltrl-click.
Well, we can press Play now !

(at no sound, probably the Sound Device chosen is wrong, or something is the matter with it).