First, let's get a copy of fresh Cake code.

To get a fresh download, visit the CakePHP project at Cakeforge: http://cakeforge.org/projects/cakephp/ and download the stable release. For this tutorial you need 1.2.x.x

You can also checkout/export a fresh copy of our trunk code at: https://svn.cakephp.org/repo/trunk/cake/1.2.x.x/

Regardless of how you downloaded it, place the code inside of your DocumentRoot. Once finished, your directory setup should look something like the following:

/path_to_document_root
    /app
    /cake
    /docs
    /vendors
    .htaccess
    index.php

1. /path_to_document_root
2. /app
3. /cake
4. /docs
5. /vendors
6. .htaccess
7. index.php

Now might be a good time to learn a bit about how Cake's directory structure works: check out Chapter "Basic Principles of CakePHP", Section : CakePHP File Structure.