Copyright (c) 2014-2017, The Monero Project
Date: September 19, 2017
This ReadMe does not aim to be a complete introduction to Monero. If you are new to Monero or even to cryptocurrencies in general you find a good introduction on reddit at Newcomers Please Read. Everything You Need To Know. You also find a lot of good tutorials on Monero.How.
Please note that Monero and its software are constantly evolving and progressing; it probably won't take long for some of the information here to become outdated.
You just installed the Monero GUI wallet for Windows, release Helium Hydra, more exact version 0.11.0.0. The wallet enables you to send and receive Moneroj in a secure and very private way.
Also included is the Monero daemon, so you have everything now to run a so-called full node and become part of the network of nodes that manages the Monero blockchain; you don't need to install additional packages in order to start.
For checking whether there are already newer versions of this package you can go to the Downloads page on getmonero.org, the official Monero site.
If you have already a release of the GUI wallet software on your computer that was installed with the help of this installer (in an earlier version), upgrading is easy: Just run the new installer; there is no need to uninstall the old Monero release first.
But if you run a release of the GUI wallet software that you downloaded as a .zip file and unzipped into a folder, if you "installed it manually" so to say, don't try to upgrade by pointing the installer to that folder, because this might lead to problems e.g. if you try to uninstall everything later.
It's better to let the installer put the software into another folder and then delete the old folder, either outright or after moving away any additional files that you may have stored there. (If you did not change default locations for wallets and the blockchain, you don't have to worry about them, they won't be in that particular folder, but elsewhere "in safety".)
Any Monero wallet needs access to the blockchain, the ongoing ledger of all Monero transactions. For the GUI wallet there are two principal ways to get that access: You can let Monero sync with the network i.e. let it download the blockchain and store it locally on your computer, or you can configure your wallet to access a remote open node to get indirect access to the blockchain.
Working with your own copy of the blockchain is preferred: It strengthens the Monero network, and it provides the most security and privacy possible for you.
However if your Internet access makes it difficult to run a full node, or if you have simply no room to store the blockchain locally (over 30 GB in fall 2017, and of course growing), you can compromise and try to connect to a remote node. One way of finding such a node is checking this page.
Please do read the following before jumping right in and starting the GUI wallet:
If you decide to work with your own copy of the blockchain, which you should whenever possible, you have to download it first; it's not part of the installed package. Beside the GUI wallet there is second program, the so-called Monero daemon, which will carry out that download. You find it in the Utilities sub-folder of the program group.
Depending on your Internet access and the speed of your computer this can take several hours, in some cases more than a day. Furthermore there are unfortunate cases where the download gets stuck somehow or doesn't work at all, e.g. because a firewall prevents access to other nodes of the Monero network.
The GUI wallet can start the daemon for you, but that way you will not see much during initial blockchain download, especially you probably won't see any error messages in case something goes wrong. By starting the daemon yourself "by hand" using the Monero Daemon icon in the Utilities sub-folder of the Monero program group you will see it running and displaying messages in a separate window.
If all goes well the daemon will finally display a message like this: You are now synchronized with the network.
Then you are ready for sure to start your Monero adventures by starting the GUI wallet.
When the Monero daemon downloads the blockchain it does so by connecting to other nodes of the network.
If you allow incoming TCP/IP connections to port 18080 on your computer and let your daemon run for extended periods of time you can "return the favor" and help others in turn to get access to Monero. However, depending on your Internet connection, firewall, modem, router, ISP etc. this might not be possible, and opening a port in such a way usually requires some technical knowledge.
If you want to try you may start e.g. with this Monero Stack Exchange question.
The Monero software and especially the GUI wallet are "work in progress", and sometimes things go wrong.
Please note that despite any technical problems that you may encounter your moneroj are almost always safe: You may not be able to move them or you even may not see how many you currently have, but you most probably won't loose any. But do remember that the seed needed to re-create the wallet is critical, however: Never loose your seed!
In the Utilities sub-folder there are several more icons that may help you to solve problems. These are the icons with a x in front and the name (in parenthesis) to make them visually stand apart from the "normal" ones because you will probably only need them in case of trouble, but not during normal usage of Monero.
Here an overview and short info what each icon does:
| x (Try GUI Wallet Low Graphics Mode) | Run the GUI wallet in a mode that allows for low-graphics environments, e.g. systems with very simple non-hardware-accelerated or emulated / virtualized video cards; also try if the display is simply slow or lags |
| x (Try Daemon, Exit Confirm) | Run the Monero daemon in a window that does not automatically close if the daemon should exit because of a fatal error; useful in cases where the normal daemon icon just leads to a window that closes right away |
| x (Try Kill Daemon) | Kill any running daemon (technically, any process called monerod.exe), whether with or without any visible window, for starting "with a clean slate"; easier than killing such tasks with the help of the Windows Task Manager |
| x (Check GUI Wallet Log) | Open the log with status and error messages of the GUI wallet program in Notepad; experienced people have a chance to diagnose technical problems with the wallet, usually by looking at the last few lines of this log |
| x (Check Daemon Log) | Open the log with status and error messages of the daemon in Notepad; again, the last few lines of this (possible very long) log are usually the most important for troubleshooting |
| x (Check Default Wallet Folder) | Open the standard wallet folder in Windows Explorer; useful e.g. if you want to backup your wallets |
| x (Check Blockchain Folder) | Open the folder containing the blockchain in Windows Explorer |