Once you have either unpacked a binary distribution, or built Csound from sources, you will need to configure Csound so that it will run properly on your system. Installers usually perform these steps for you automatically.

On all platforms, make sure the directory or directories containing Csound's plugin libraries are in an OPCODE6DIR or OPCODE6DIR64 environment variable depending on the precision of the compiled binary. (Note that for csound5 these environment variables were OPCODEDIR and OPCODEDIR64.)

The Python opcodes currently require Python 3.x, which can be downloaded from www.python.org if it is not already on your system. You can check if it is available by typing 'python' on a command prompt or DOS window.

Windows

On Windows, make sure the directory or directories (normally the C:\Program Files\Csound directory) containing the Csound executables directory are in your PATH variable, or else copy all the executable files to your Windows system32 directory. Depending on your installation method, you might also need to set the OPCODE6DIR and OPCODE6DIR64 environment variables. Assuming that Csound is installed to the default location of C:\Program Files\Csound you can use (otherwise set the paths accordingly):

set OPCODE6DIR=C:\Program Files\Csound\plugins
set OPCODE6DIR64=C:\Program Files\Csound\plugins64
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Csound\bin

Unix and Linux

On Unix and Linux, either install the Csound program in one of the system bin directories, typically /usr/local/bin, and the Csound and plugin shared libraries in places like /usr/local/lib/csound/plugins or /usr/local/lib/csound/plugins64 and make sure that OPCODE6DIR and OPCODE6DIR64 environment variable are set correctly.

CsoundAC

CsoundAC requires some additional configuration. On all platforms, CsoundAC requires that you have Python installed on your computer. The directory containing the _csoundAC shared library and the CsoundAC.py file must be in your PYTHONPATH environment variable, so that the Python runtime knows how to load these files.