Download and Install Packet Tracer

Finding the download

We're going to open up a Chrome browser, and then I would just type in "download Cisco Packet Tracer". Within this, the first link is the one that we want, the Cisco Networking Academy. I'd skip any sponsors if they were to come up, and I don't see any here, so we can go directly to this first one, Cisco Packet Tracer.

Now, I am going to have to create an account through this process, so just be warned about that. I'm going to click on this "view courses" here, and it talks about this Skills for All, which is going to be the site that we're going to need to transition to. So I'll go to the Skills for All here, and this is where I'm going to sign up and create an account. We'll enroll in this Getting Started with Cisco Packet Tracer, so I'll click on this right here and we'll get started.

Creating the account

This is where we're going to create our account. So what we'll do is this "don't have an account, sign up". I'm going to click on here and I'm going to start going through the process of creating my account. Next step here, I've got to fill this out. I've got an example account that I'm using here, because I already have an account through here — in fact, I've got a few accounts through here. So I'm going to come up with this information here and create the account. There are going to be terms and services that I'm going to have to agree to, so I continue.

Downloading

Once I'm in this course, I can click on this "download Cisco Packet Tracer" and download this from this site here. I'm going to scroll down and find the download link, and mine is Windows, so I'll click the Windows and start the download process. So now it's downloading.

While we're waiting for this, I will mention that, if you notice, we're now enrolled in this Cisco class, and this Cisco class around Packet Tracer is a decent class. So you can go through and learn about Packet Tracer and how to use Packet Tracer either through here, or you can finish the rest of this course. Either way, make sure that you at least have some of the basics. I'm going to just cover the real basics of how to get started and figure out the lab, versus this is going to go a little more in depth. So if you want to go a little more in depth into Packet Tracer, this is a good route to go. I will mention also that there's a secondary three-hour course that you can take. So not only can you take this Getting Started with Cisco Packet Tracer through the Skills for All site, but you can also take that other course as well, the three-hour course.

Installing

Next up, I'm going to install Packet Tracer. I'm just going to open this up and start the executable. I'm going to get the user account control here, so I'm going to say yes to that, and then it's going to go through the install process. I'm just going to accept and agree to all the licensing and do all of the general install that it's recommending, so we'll go through this process.

At this point in time it's installed. I can close out of the browser, I don't need that, and then I can launch this if I want to launch it next. I'm not going to launch it, and just click finish.

Launching it

Launching it for the future, all I need to do is click the Windows and type in "Packet Tracer", and there's Cisco Packet Tracer. I can launch it and get it started.

It's asking for multi-user when the application starts. At this point I don't need the multi-user — it's just if I want to enable some real-time collaboration and I'm working with others. For this purpose I don't want that, so I'm just going to click no.

I am going to have to use that account that I signed in with, so I'm going to click on Skills for All. It's going to go through this login process once again, and I'll have to log in with my account. Once I log in, it shows me this basic message here, and the Cisco Packet Tracer flashes down here, so I can open this up, and now I'm logged in and ready.