Download Maxent by visiting Princeton.edu (see link in Resources). Choose to download the latest version, as recommended, or choose from a list of older versions. Fill out the name, institution and email fields. Click the "Accept terms and download" button.
Copy all three of the files that are presented to a location on your computer.
Click on the file entitled maxent.bat, if you are using Windows, from the location you save it to. Open a command shell on other platforms and enter "java -mx512m -jar maxent.jar". This will open the software.
Upload the required files into the software to perform a run. Enter the name of a file containing presence localities under the Samples section, a directory with environmental variables under the Environmental Layers section and an ouput directory near the bottom of the software form. The presence-localities file must be in .csv format and contain the species name followed by a comma, the longitude followed by a comma and then latitude. The environmental layers file must contain ascii raster grids in ESRI's .asc format. The grids must have the same bounds and cell sizes. Sample files are provided in the .zip file you saved to your computer.
Select the options you want to incorporate and produce. You can choose to create response curves or pictures of predictions and measure variable importance.
Press the "Run" button. The run will produce a output files for analyzing. Files in html format with a picture of the geographical region display the presence locations with dots and provide warm colors in areas where the species should be found based on the Maxent process.