UAE is a computer emulator which emulates the hardware of Commodore International's Amiga range of computers. UAE was released in 1995 and was originally called the Unusable Amiga Emulator, due to its inability to boot. In its early stages, it was known as Unix Amiga Emulator and later with other names as well. Since none of the popular expansions fit any more, the abbreviation no longer stands for anything, and the software is simply known as UAE — this occasionally gets backronymed as Universal Amiga Emulator, Ultimate Amiga Emulator or Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator.

win-uae

I always favour portable installation where possible. Download the zip archive distribution from the win-uae downloads page. Extract the zip archive - you will find a single .exe file. Create an empty file called

winuae.ini

. Now start win-uae. It will complain that there aren't any ROMs to start the emulator - this is normal because you (probably) haven't got any Amiga machine ROMs 😢. I'm sure you can get these illegally but the best option is to either dump your own ROMs from your own machines or to buy the licenced ROMs from Amiga Forever.

fs-uae

Again, I prefer portability. Download the zip archive rather than the installer. Extract to some directory - you will see two .exe files (Arcade.exe and Launcher.exe) plus a couple of folders (Extras and System). If you look inside the 'Extras' folder, you will see a file called

portable.ini

. To force fs-uae to run in portable mode, simply copy/move this file into the main folder containing Arcade.exe and Launcher.exe.

Now run 'Launcher.exe' or 'Arcade.exe'. You will know if this has forced portable mode because lots of directories will be created (Cache, Configuration, Kickstarts, Plugins).

When you start the launcher, look at the bottom of the window and you will see a message which states that FS-UAE is using 'Replacement Kick Start ROMs' and to 'Click to import kickstart ROMs' which you should do. You can also import ROMs from the main menu (top left icon) > Import Kickstarts.

Games and stuff

If you can afford it, I recommend purchasing the Amiga Forever Plus Edition which gives you licenced ROMs and a good few games thrown in. Also, it's worth registering for an account at the OpenRetro Game Database website and linking this to FS-UAE so you get all the lovely cover art and configurations for the games.