Actual Education Interactive Guided Tours

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-Technical support for our Interactive Guided Tours-
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We want you to enjoy your Interactive Guided Tour and that means we need to support you with any problems you may have. We promise to try our very best to help you get your tour working, if we can't then you are covered by our 30 day, 'no quibble' returns policy so you have no risk when buying from us.

We are committed to helping reduce and remove as many problems as possible.

An IBM PC compatible computer running Microsoft Windows XP/Vista Flash Player installed on your computer in order to hear audio mouse/touchpad to control the 360 degree views.

You will need Adobe Flash Player to get this tour to work. This is one of the safest and most common software drivers in the world, you probably have it already!

Click 'Take this demonstration' first to launch your tour. If it doesn't work then click on the 'Link me to Flash' button. This will take you straight to the Adobe Flash Player website. Adobe is one of the safest and most respected software companies in the world. Check the licence before you download*.

The screenshot above shows how you can make these YouTube fill your screen so you can see the information more clearly.

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-Purchasing and digital downloads-
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1 - To buy our software simply click on 'Buy' on the website homepage. You can buy a tour at normal prices or at the reduced members rate. Membership is free! Once you've clicked on the page you wish to purchase from, scroll up or down to tour you wish to buy. You can buy the tour as a CD-Rom (which is shipped to you) or as a digital download (which you can start downloading as soon as payment has gone through). Click on the one you wish to have. Check the information for the tour you want comes up and then click 'go to cart'.

2 - Use the link provided in your email from us to download the software. Click on the link and your software will start to download. We advise saving it to your desktop but if you don't select this then the file will save to your downloads folder. Unless you change it, the file will be located in C: Users > your name > downloads.

3 - The file will take some time to download. You shouldn't close down your internet browser page (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, AOL or other) while the file is downloading. The amount of time this file takes to download will depend on your connection speed. Wireless or dialup users may find that their download times are longer than indicated on our 'estimated download time' page.

We strongly advise that you backup this file on a CD-Rom, USB drive or external hard drive.

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-Installation-
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4 - As mentioned in 2 we find it's easier to save it to the desktop. The file you have downloaded contains everything you need to run the tour. It is an 'exe' file. Double click on it to launch the installer.

There may be a delay where it seems as if the computer does nothing...wait until it either starts to install OR the Windows User Account Control (UAC) window appears asking if you wish to proceed with the installation. This window usually appears by itself but if you cannot see it, and nothing seems to be happening, check your taskbar for a flashing sign with a little shield on it - click this and you will see the UAC on your screen. Click 'Yes' to proceed. The software will now install on your main computer drive.

The UAC and installation time will only happen the first time you install the tour. None of this is needed once the tour is installed.

Once the file is installed a shortcut will be placed on your desktop.

5 - You can use the shortcut to launch your tour. This shortcut can be moved, placed on your taskbar or in your start menu. If you delete or lose this shortcut don't worry! Your tour is still on your computer. Go to 'My Computer' and then look in either the 'Program Files' folder or the 'Program Files (x86)' folder. Your tour will be installed in one of these folders. It will have the name of the tour you purchased. In this folder will be an 'application' file named 'autorun'. You can double click on this to launch the tour. You can also use this file to make a replacement shortcut on your desktop. Right click on the file, select 'Create shortcut' and a message will appear saying you cannot create a shortcut here but you can have the shortcut placed onto your desktop.

6 - If you need to uninstall the tour you can do this two different ways. Navigate to the tour folder on your computer (see No 5 for help) and click 'uninstal' (the spelling mistake is not ours!). Your tour will then uninstall. You can also go to Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program and there you can click on the name of your tour and follow the uninstall information.

If you have kept and backed up the file you bought and downloaded from us, you can re-install your Interactive Guided Tour at any future time.

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-Operating your tour-
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7 - Check your mouse is working (or trackpad) and ensure your speakers or headphones are 'on'.

When your tour launches you will see a short animation showing the Actual Education logo, then a window containing our terms and conditions. You should read these carefully and click 'Yes, I agree' when you agree with these. You will then see a 'Software Drivers' page. We advise that you only download drivers if your tour does not run, you will most likely have all the necessary drivers on your computer already. Click on the 'Main Menu' button in the top right corner of the page. .

The Main Menu page shows an introductory video and all the sub-tours you can take. Each sub-tour is a detailed mini virtual tour. You can click on whichever one takes your fancy although it we advise taking them in order.

You can exit the software by clicking 'Exit'.

8 - The tour may pause for a few seconds as it loads. Use your mouse to look around. To look around you need to move your mouse over the picture, hold down the left button and gently and smoothly move your mouse (or laptop trackpad) up, down, left or right.

You may see green and red 'hotspots'. These are clickable. Click on a green hotspot to go to the next scene, or red to go back to the previous scene.

You can switch off the audio by clicking on the 'Sound' button. You can scroll the information text up and down by clicking and dragging the scroll bar to the right of the text box.

Your tour may also feature a 'Scene Selector' box. You can scroll this up and down (just like the text). Selecting one of these will let you go directly to that virtual tour scene.

9 - Many tours feature a full screen option. Double click on the panoramic image to launch this and double click again to reduce it to its default setting.

You may notice numbered hotspots, as well as the green and red ones. These numbered hotspots bring up either photographs, archive images, archive maps, video clips or rotatable models.

The rotatable models have a 'click arrows to rotate image' written in white on a red bar at the base of the hotspot window. You can click on these arrows (or click on the hotspot and, keeping the left mouse button down, drag your mouse left or right) to 'rotate' a building or other historical object.

10 - When you have finished looking at a hotspot you need to click on the red cross in the right hand side of the bar that appears at the top of the hotspot.

Your tour may also feature and archive map that can be viewed when you are in 'full screen' mode. Highlighted red circle will appear showing you the locations of different virtual tour scenes. The one that you are on will show a red 'radar' like image - looking around will see this move, showing you the direction you are facing. You can also drag this on the map, or move to different scenes by clicking their red circles on the map.

The map on your Interactive Guided Tour does not show when you are in 'standard view', only in 'full screen view'.