Step by Step instructions for the EASIEST way to start mining STEEM on windows!(Nevermind, doesnt work anymore, need to run linux or vmware linux emulation on windows for this to work and use newest version as we are way past 0.13.0 we are on 0.18.0))

(Ok so I have been informed that this doesnt work anymore, I wish i would have known, but you can still mine on vmware emulating linux on a windows machine....at that point its becoming very meta and un effieicnt and you might as well simply buy some steem directly using bitcoin atm and poloniex or a local steem buyer/seller like i intend to have with my post/ local steem buyer guide where you can post your city and your prices how much percentage you charge to buy someones steem for cash! I suggest 5010% but may go higher for various reasons...still a nice way to cash out your steemit account....send another steemiter your steem or sbd and have trhem pay you cash directly for the exact same fee you would experience using an exchange and a bitcoin atm, making this method cheaper!
https://steemit.com/money/@ackza/th-steem-for-cash-local-matchup-list-my-idea-for-steem-and-sbd-atms-to-allow-cashing-oout-of-steem-or-sbd-for-5-fee-but-you-get

Here are instructions from http://cryptomining-blog.com/8168-a-quick-guide-on-how-to-mine-steem-on-windows/ but distilled down into an even easier to understand process!

Just download the latest Steem Windows Wallet and Miner for Windows here https://github.com/btscube/steem/releases/

download the Zip file and extract it, here is a direct link to the latest version 0.13.0 rc3 https://github.com/btscube/steem/releases/download/0.13.0-rc3/steem-win-13-0rc3.zip
(You will need at least 3.5 Gigabytes of free space to download the steemit blockchain. And downloading the steemit blockchain technically downloads a copy of every article and comment on steemit! pretty cool right?)

Now once it's downloaded, unzip or unrar (extract it) into a folder like this

and then once you have the steem-win-13-0rc3 file extracted into its own folder, click on it, like this, and you'll open up "witness_node_data_dir" folder up like this

And then inside "witness_node_data_dir" we find "config.ini" and right click it and click "edit" OR open it in Notepad or drag and drop the file into notepad...and you'll see this

Now follow the below steps,
" Start by adding a few steem nodes to connect to, just paste the following list inside config.ini under under "# P2P nodes to connect to on startup (may specify multiple times)":
and paste these in make sure to delete the # sign on the second line

seed-node = 52.38.66.234:2001
seed-node = 52.37.169.52:2001
seed-node = 52.26.78.244:2001
seed-node = 192.99.4.226:2001
seed-node = 46.252.27.1:1337
seed-node = 81.89.101.133:2001
seed-node = 52.4.250.181:39705
seed-node = steemd.pharesim.me:2001
seed-node = seed.steemed.net:2001
seed-node = steem.clawmap.com:2001
seed-node = seed.steemwitness.com:2001
seed-node = steem-seed1.abit-more.com:2001

"– Under the name of witness add your steemit.com username (you need to register prior to start mining), so make sure it is something like: witness = "myusername"
– Under the name of miner and its private key add your steemit.com username and private key, so make sure it is something like: miner = ["myusername","yourWIFprivatekeyhere"]
– When setting different parameters in the ini file make sure you don’t leave the # sign in front of the line as it essentially comments it out and the miner behaves as this parameter is not set, so you can get an error that a witness or miner is not set!
– If you are not sure where to get the private key, then just login to your steemit.com account, go to your Profile and then to the Permissions tab. Here you need to click on Show the private key for Active (you may need to relogin first). Do note that the key shown by default is the public key, you need to show the private key and use the private key in the config! Alternatively you can use the Owner private key, this is also your login password, but due to security reasons you better stick with the Active key."

– Under the Number of threads to use add mining-threads = 1 or higher number, depending on how much of your CPU you want to utilize for mining, more threads result in higher hashrate" - from http://cryptomining-blog.com/8168-a-quick-guide-on-how-to-mine-steem-on-windows/

Here are the nodes for you to copy and paste:
seed-node = 52.38.66.234:2001
seed-node = 52.37.169.52:2001
seed-node = 52.26.78.244:2001
seed-node = 192.99.4.226:2001
seed-node = 46.252.27.1:1337
seed-node = 81.89.101.133:2001
seed-node = 52.4.250.181:39705
seed-node = steemd.pharesim.me:2001
seed-node = seed.steemed.net:2001
seed-node = steem.clawmap.com:2001
seed-node = seed.steemwitness.com:2001
seed-node = steem-seed1.abit-more.com:2001

Once you finish with all these steps, just go double click on steemd.exe and it will start the mining node and you will be mining steem on your computer!

If you thought you configured everything but when you try opening the steemd.exe and it opens up and closes real fast, don't worry, you probably just have the wrong private key or made a typo or forgot to erase the # sign on the second lines......and to make sure you have youre correct active private key, go back to your steemit profile, and under "wallet" you'll see the tab "permissions", now go under Active key, it's NOT the one you first see there, to get the one you need you must go to the very right and hit the small text button that says, "Show private key" click it and it will make you login again, and then the code you need will appear under "Active", and make sure that this PRIVATE active key is pasted into your config.ini and then make sure you get rid of your # signs on the second lines, choose how many cpu cores you want working on it (you can just leave it at 1 if you want to still use your computer and not have it slow down using all cores)
And that's it! Make sure you are already registered with steemit of course!

But that's ALL you need to start mining STEEM like mining bitcoin etc....if you have any questions let me know in the comments!

So in conclusion, All you have to do is copy and paste the nodes, paste in your username and

PS; I made this in photoshop just now to give a visual representation of how I understand steem to work!!!

Update:

Ok aparently even though using these steps my windows miner is still working, i have been informed by @pfunk and @kingscrown that "These instructions will not work at all. The 13 in the version number indicates hard fork 13. The network is currently on hard fork 16. And mining is pretty broken for it as well. See @abit's blog posts for how to actually mine, until the next hard fork rolls out and mining will be gone."

even though my miner seems to be running fine using these instructions

But aparently that doesnt mean its actually working, I'll take their word for it, and that I need to use linux, OR we can run VMware and emulate linux inside windows, and run the linux miner program that way! I could maybe create instructions for that later! Maybe we could even run Linux from within the chrome browser on windows and then install and run steemit miner for linux!
Well if you do have a linux machine to use, here isthe new mining guide that aparently DOES work!
https://steemit.com/mining/@abit/steem-v0-16-0-brief-mining-guide