Instructions for getting started.

I am sure this is a frequent question, but please take the time to help a noobie to MT4.

How do I get started with meta trader and how much does it cost. I just want to use the program for T/A and charts. I have a live account with a broker and I would like to be able to do my T/A on meta trader and trade on the broker plat form, is this ok?

I went to the website (metaquotes net) and down loaded MT4 client terminal, but I dont want to sign up for a new account and all until I know if I have to pay and what commitment I have to make.

Also what is the difference between a demo account and a real account with MT4?

download it from www.strategybuilderfx.com

some brokers have time limited (e.g. 30 day) demo accounts.. but sbfx doesn't

I use alpari because I heard the demo feed was excellent, seems to me that there is no expiry either. But it is confusing because times are western european time, not GMT... sbfx is GMT... so that is much easier because you are not doing time conversions in your head (most articles I read have time in GMT)

live accounts are accounts with your money in it. demos are monopoly money.

many brokers put fake prices in once in a while on live accounts (spiking to hit your stops).. I do not know if this affects their demos. I wouldn't think so since that wouldn't make sense, they would want to pretend like they have demos that reflect the market... but I didn't research that.

demos are free, it is just a question whether they have a time limit or not...

also, don't update to the latest version of MT4 when new releases come out... wait a week. Sometimes updating to new versions screw things up. I mean new builds. Right now 195 is the latest, I have no problems... but I did suffer some problems maybe 6 builds ago from updating too quickly. (sbfx feed stopped working)

Thank you for your response.