Not Able to Add the A-star onto Arduino IDE boards menu

Hi, I am not able to add the A-star onto the board menu in Arduino IDE. The directions are very unclear and jumpy on your site but so far this is what I have done:
With Windows 8

  1. I have downloaded the Arduino IDE.

  2. I have downloaded the content under “A-Star Software and Drivers” link.

3)I have clicked on that file in my chrome browser…Now I am lost.
how do I get that file into the boards menu on the IDE. Please explain this, as I am new to all of this, Explain like I am a 75 year old person.

Hello.

I am sorry you are having trouble installing your A-Star. It sounds like you might have not unzipped the A-Star Software and Drivers file that you downloaded, which you will need to do first before attempting to install the drivers and Arduino IDE add-on. When you clicked on a downloaded file in your browser, it usually shows you the contents of the zip file but it does not unzip the file for you. To unzip the A-Star file, navigate to the “Downloads” folder and right-click on the folder, select “Extract All…” and click “extract”. (This should extract all the contents of the zip file into a folder (e.g. “a-star-1.4.0”) under the same directory (“Downloads”).) Next open the “drivers” folder in the extracted folder (e.g. “a-star-1.4.0”), right-click “a-star.inf” and select “Install” to install the A-Star drivers. Then Windows will prompt you to verify that you want to install the drivers. Click “Install”. Now Windows will automatically recognize your A-Star whenever you connect it to your computer.

To add the A-Star to your Arduino IDE, you will need to copy or move the “pololu” folder from within the “add-on” folder (which should be in the same directory as the “driver” folder) into the “hardware” folder under your sketchbook location for Arduino. You can find your sketchbook location by clicking “Preferences” under the “File” menu of the Arduino IDE. Note that you will need to restart the IDE in order to see the A-Star in the Tools>Board menu and its example sketches under the File>Examples menu.

- Amanda

So, I have dounloaded the drivers and “the process” described in paragraph 1 …

But In paragraph 2 is where I got lost, too many files,

I got the Pololu file (from the add on file) on my desktop but I am having trouble in adding that to the board menu on the IDE. or the ““hardware” folder under your sketchbook location for Arduino”

I have found the sketchbook file location under file>preferences but what do I do with it? What do I do with the Pololu folder? please explain slowly and thoroughly.

P.S: I am new to pc style computer after switching from apple. thanks

I am sorry you got lost in the second paragraph of my last post. I broke the paragraph down into smaller steps so that it might be easier for you to follow:

1). Open File Explorer.

2). Navigate to your Arduino’s sketchbook location specified in the File->Preferences tab of your Arduino IDE. (Typically, the sketchbook location will be a folder named Arduino inside your Documents folder. e.g. C:\Users<username>\Documents\Arduino\hardware .)

3). Move the “pololu” folder from your Desktop into the “hardware” folder under the sketchbook location.

4). Close the Arduino IDE if it is open, and then restart it.

Once you see “Pololu 32U4 A-Star” listed in the Tools->Board menu, you can begin programming your A-Star.

- Amanda

I got it!! Thanks!