This is the part you need to take note of –
Note: During the Installation Wizard, Forums will be associated with the “Forums” page. In some installations, you do not need to change anything. But if your sitewide forums won’t work, go to wp-admin BuddyPress > Pages and you’ll find the association and remove the Forums Page as the selected page.
However, i have managed to get this far. and while a forum does install. it appears it removes the FORUM tab on the website and so is only findable by publishing and clicking on links. Can somebody shed some brighter light on the issue? thanks in advance