1. Download the appropriate installer or package from the Releases page.

2. Run it and follow the instructions, or move to your preferred location.

3. Run the CorsixTH executable. The first time you start the game, it may ask for the location of Theme Hospital data files. If it does not, you are done! :-) Happy gaming!

Otherwise, point CorsixTH to an installation, the CD (the HOSP folder) or somewhere else you have put Theme Hospital data. If you don't have Theme Hospital already, you can buy it at gog.com or download the demo. As an example, if you did buy the original game from www.gog.com and installed it on Windows using default settings, you will want to point CorsixTH to C:\Program Files\GOG.com\Theme Hospital on first startup. Otherwise, for Linux, for example, you will need to extract them from the installer with a 3rd-party tool using innoextract:

sudo apt-get install innoextract
innoextract setup_theme_hospital_2.0.0.5.exe

then use the app folder that gets extracted as the root of my data files in CorsixTH.

An alternative approach is to use wine to run the GOG installer, then point CorsixTH to ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/GOG.com/Theme Hospital (or wherever the game was installed).

4. Optionally copy the CD contents to a good place on your computer and point the game there instead so that you don't need to have the CD in the tray all the time.

5. Play the game!

If the above is too short, or it does not work, this is the somewhat longer version.

To start, it is worthwhile to quickly ensure that your operating system is supported:

• Windows - Supported. Note that for Windows 8 and later you can only run CorsixTH in Desktop mode. There is currently no Modern-UI version. A more detailed, Windows-specific version of this page (with lots of pictures) might be of interest, but have in mind that it was written a few years ago.
• Linux - Supported.
• macOS - Supported.
• Android - Third party project, including Chromebook support.
• Others - As long as you've got a C/C++ compiler and the SDL library available, then things should work.

Currently, game assets (graphics, sounds, levels, translations, etc.) are loaded from the original game files. Therefore, you will require the original CD or a copy from e.g. gog.com in order to use CorsixTH. If you've got a copy of the original game disk lying around, then great - copy the HOSP folder (which should contain subdirectories called Data, QData, Levels, etc.) from the root of the CD to somewhere on your hard drive.

If you are unable to acquire the full game data files, then the demo can be downloaded easily and used instead (though the demo only has one level, and lacks most management screens).

There are four ways to obtain a copy of CorsixTH:

1. A ready-to-use executable (compiled binary) or installer for the latest stable release can be downloaded from the release page.
   You may be able to use a package manager to get a stable copy of CorsixTH for Linux on Debian and Fedora based distributions. You can see what release is available here and if supported you may be able to install using
   Debian-based: sudo apt install corsix-th or sudo apt install corsixth (distro dependent)
   Fedora: sudo dnf install corsix-th
   A Flatpak is also available on Flathub. It contains all the needed dependencies (except the original game assets) and runs in a sandboxed environment.

2. A development build from the master branch (Windows only). At the Actions page, open a recent Windows workflow run and download the artifact. Shortcut.

3. The source code of the latest stable release can be downloaded as a tarball from the release page.

4. The latest development source code can be downloaded from the project home page or checked out with the git client.

If you've gone with option 3 or 4, then you will now need to compile CorsixTH. See How To Compile for a guide on doing so.

Note: If using the Windows installer, this step is done at install time.

The next step is to decide where to put saved games and other configuration files. The default location is the current user's "AppData" folder for Windows and XDG_CONFIG_HOME or equivalent for Linux and macOS. Continue to step 5 if that sounds good to you. If you want the game to put these files somewhere else, then create a file in the CorsixTH root directory called "config.path.txt" and let it contain one row specifying where to put the files instead. E.g. ~/.config/CorsixTH (where ~ is your home directory)

In-depth information about the Configuration File can be found here.

At this point, you should be ready to try CorsixTH. Run the CorsixTH executable.

On the first run, you may be prompted for the original Theme Hospital install location. Find where the original installation of Theme Hospital is stored on your PC. Depending on which version of the game that you have (e.g. CD, GoG, Origin), the specific folder may be slightly different. CorsixTH will highlight the correct folder in green when you mouse-over the folder. It may be the main 'Theme Hospital' folder, or it might be a folder such as /Data/Game/. Select this folder and click OK. The game should now launch.

Other settings such as resolution can be changed in-game or edited directly in the config.txt file located as specified in step 4.

If things don't go quite so smoothly, then consult the FAQ wiki page and the list of common errors, or ask on the chat channels found on the homepage.

1. Buy Theme Hospital on GoG.
2. Download the Mac version as a back up on to your Mac, you should now have the file theme_hospital_enUS_1_0_3_33062.pkg. The number may have changed.
3. Install the game from the .pkg by double clicking and following the steps onscreen.
4. Find the installed game in the /Applications folder, right click it and select "Show package contents".
5. Open /Contents then Resources
6. Inside it find the folder /game
7. Copy that folder to an easy to locate spot like your /Documents or /Desktop folder.
8. (optional) You can delete the installed Theme Hospital from /Applications folder.
9. Download the latest CorsixTH release
10. Run the CorsixTH.app
11. Select the game folder (if necessary). It should highlight green.

After trying CorsixTH, you may be interested in sticking around. If you'd like to get slightly more involved, then there are a number of ways to do so:

• Bug reports - If you've noticed something which is wrong, then please report it at the issue tracker.
• Testing the latest code - From time to time, when developers think that they fixed something, they end up breaking something else. Hence it is useful if people regularly build from GitHub and report things as they break.
• Contributing documentation - If you're good at writing, and think that these wiki pages could do with some improvements, then please improve the wiki pages.
• Translations - If you'd like to see the game use your preferred language, or if there are mistakes or omissions in the existing translation. Look here for more info.
• Contributing code - If you'd like to contribute code, then pull requests are always welcomed with open arms. You may want to join the development list for ideas on things to work on, and to get assistance with coding. To contribute code, please submit it as a pull request here on GitHub.