Installing Skype for Windows.

Due to popular demand, I have written this tutorial to provide instructions on how to install Skype for a Windows based computer.

For those of you who don’t know, Skype is a popular voIP (voice over IP) application. It allows people all over the world to communicate for free! Providing you have broadband and a microphone for your computer. You can also use Skype to call landline telephones, but this costs money, and most people have a computer these days, so why bother.

The first thing you’ll need to do is download it! You can get the latest version from here. Once you’ve saved the file to your computer, you can go ahead and run it.

Step one asks you to accept the license agreement, and as with most of these things, just tick the box and click ‘Install’.

The next step of the install asks if you want to install the Google toolbar. This is completley optional and will not affect Skype in anyway. I chose not to install it by unticking the box. Click next and the installation should continue. You will be prompted at some stage to install a add-on for Internet Explorer. I chose not to install this. Once you click next, the install will complete and Skype will start.

When Skype starts for the first time, it will ask you to register an account. This will be your logon to the Skype network, so remember it! If you already have an account registered, but you had to reinstall for some reason, cancel the registration screen and sign into the Skype window with your old account details.

Once you’ve done all that, it’s good practice to test your microphone and soundcard to ensure you can make and recieve Skype calls. Do this by double click on the ‘Skype Test’ contact in your contact list. This will call a pre-recorded message which will allow you to leave a brief message, allowing you to see if your mic works.

If you get stuck, why not leave a comment and i’ll see if I can help, otherwise, the Skype support page is an invaluable resource for figuring out what’s going wrong!