Windows User's guide to installing abc2midi, midi2abc and mftext
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abc2midi, midi2abc and mftext are all DOS executables. If you already
understand DOS, you can probably don't need to read these instructions. 
However, maybe you run Windows 95, 98 or Windows NT, you've never
used DOS before and you expect to install a program by running a program 
called "setup" or "install" which starts another program called a 
"wizard" which eventually creates a new icon on your screen. If so, 
you need these instructions, because DOS is a little bit different.

You may have been told that DOS is difficult to use. Don't worry -
you only need to know a few basic commands to install and use 
abc2midi and the other programs.

Installing a DOS Program from Windows - step by step instructions
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1. First of all, you need to find an icon labelled "MS-DOS Prompt" or
something similar. If you click on this, you will bring up a window
with something like

C:\WINDOWS>

in the top left hand corner. If you move the mouse into the window and
click on one of the buttons, you will find that text typed at the 
keyboard appears in the window. You now have the means of entering the
commands that you will need to install the programs.

2. Now you need to create a directory to put the programs in. You can
put the programs anywhere you like, but I'll assume you've decided to
place them in a directory called C:\ABCMIDI. First of all, use the
CD (change directory) command to get to the root directory

cd ..

You now should see the prompt

C:>

Now create a directory called ABCMIDI with the mkdir command.

mkdir abcmidi

And finally go into that directory.

cd abcmidi

You should have the prompt

C:\ABCMIDI>

3. You now need to unpack the zip file with the abcMIDI executables in
this directory. You may have a Windows utility that you want to use for
this, but I'll assume you have a copy of the freeware "unzip" program.
First of all, copy the zip file into this directory (I don't know where
it will be on your computer, so I've invented a place).

copy c:\windows\pcexe2.zip .

Now unzip the file

unzip pcexe2.zip

You will now have all the executables in this directory. To test out
abc2midi, type the following :

abc2midi demo.abc

This will create a lot of MIDI files with the extension .mid. You can
play these from Windows if your PC is capable of playing MIDI (or from
DOS or however you normally play MIDI files).

4. You can use the programs as they are. If you have a file you want to
convert, copy it into the directory c:\ABCMIDI, go to that directory and
then run the program on that file. However, if you want to be able to use
the program from any directory, you will need to put the directory
C:\ABCMIDI on your path. In the root directory (C:\), there is a file called
AUTOEXEC.BAT. You will need to edit this file. If you have a favourite
text editor for Windows, you could use that, but you could also "edit" :

edit autoexec.bat

Look for a line in this file which starts with the word PATH. This should 
be followed by a list of directories separated by semicolons. Add the 
following onto the end of this line

;C:\ABCMIDI

Now you will be able to run the executables from any directory after
you next re-boot your machine.