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

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

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

4. Optionally, copy the CD contents to a safe place on your hard drive and point CorsixTH to it so that you don't need to put the CD in your computer.

5. Play the game!

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

Before you begin, it is worth checking that your operating system is supported:

• Windows - Supported. Please 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 bear in mind that this was written several 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 (such as graphics, sounds, levels, and movies) are loaded from the original game files. Therefore, you will require an original CD or a digital copy of Theme Hospital in order to play 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. Otherwise, point CorsixTH to either a Theme Hospital installation or the CD itself (the HOSP folder).

If you don't have Theme Hospital already, you can either buy a second-hand physical copy (such as from eBay - or maybe your local charity shop), buy it digitally from GOG, or download the demo. For example, if you buy the original game from GOG and install it on Windows using default settings, you will want to point CorsixTH to C:\Program Files\GOG.com\Theme Hospital on first startup.

Linux users can extract the files from the installer with a third-party tool such as innoextract:

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

Then use the app folder which was extracted as the root of your 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).

If you are unable to acquire the full game data files, you can download and use the demo version instead. Please note that 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). Go to 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. If you want 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)

Detailed information about the Configuration File can be found here.

By this point, you should be ready to play 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, EA App/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 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 your Mac. You should now have the file theme_hospital_enUS_1_0_3_33062.pkg. (Please note that the exactl 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 be highlighted in green.

After trying CorsixTH, you may be interested in sticking around to help the project. 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 weird or your game crashes, please report it using the issue tracker.
• Testing the latest code - From time to time, when developers try to fix 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 edit the wiki pages.
• Translations - If you'd like to see the game use your preferred language, or if the existing translation contains mistakes or omissions in the existing translation, you can help improve the Localization.
• Contributing code - If you'd like to contribute code, then pull requests are always welcomed with open arms. You may want to join our Discord for ideas on what to work on, and to get assistance with coding. To contribute code, please submit it as a pull request here on GitHub.