When the installation procedure is executed, a browse function is provided for prompts where you are requested to specify a directory or file location. You will be prompted for the following information:

• The network license server host name. The installation procedure will attempt to determine this information automatically, but you have the option of changing the default choice. Make sure the appropriate license server host is entered. If a set of redundant servers should be used, enter the host names of the redundant servers in the boxes provided in the dialog box (see “Redundant license server configurations,” Section 3.4, for details on installing redundant license servers). The installation will define settings in the Abaqus environment file according to information detected in the Abaqus license file on the server. If the license server contains an academic teaching license, Abaqus will be configured to use this license by default (see “License management parameters,” Section 4.1.6).

• The URL for the Abaqus HTML documentation (optional, but recommended). If you did not install the Abaqus HTML documentation before the products or if you do not specify the URL, you must perform additional steps to provide access to the HTML documentation (see “Setting the documentation URL after installation,” Section C.2).

• The installation directory. Specify the Abaqus parent directory (referred to as abaqus_dir), which is the location where all installed Abaqus releases will be stored. The default location is the current working directory on UNIX and Linux platforms and C:\SIMULIA\Abaqus on Windows platforms. You should NOT install Abaqus in a directory that indicates a specific Abaqus release number; the release-specific directory will be created by the installation procedure. For example, all files needed to run the initial extended functionality release for Abaqus 6.9 (Abaqus 6.9-EF1) will be installed in abaqus_dir/6.9-EF1.

• The location of the Abaqus start-in directory (Windows platforms only). Specify the location where user files created during Abaqus interactive sessions are stored and the home directory for the Abaqus command window. The default location is C:\temp. (This can be changed by users later; see “Common customizations on Windows platforms,” Section 5.1.2.) Ensure that the start-in directory has write permission for all users.

• The configuration for parallel execution (UNIX and Linux platforms). For more information on MPI-based and thread-based parallel processing modes, see “Parallel execution,” Section 11.10 of the Abaqus Analysis User's Manual. Specify one of the following options:

  • Configure MPI now. To simplify usage of the parallel features in Abaqus, it is recommended that you use MPI-based parallel processing if it is supported on your platform. You will need to provide the full path to the appropriate MPI launcher. Supported MPIs are listed in the System Information section of the Support page at www.simulia.com.

  • Configure MPI later. Abaqus will use the default MPI settings. You can change the MPI settings later by editing the environment file located in the abaqus_dir/release/site directory. For more information, see “Using the Abaqus environment settings,” Section 3.3.1 of the Abaqus Analysis User's Manual.

  • Configure THREADS now. The thread-based parallel processing mode is used.

• If the installation program detects a wide area network (WAN) license file, you will be prompted for information about the geographic location of your computer. This information is used to automatically set the computer_location environment file parameter and enable license usage logging for report generation. For more information, see “Reporting license usage data,” Section 3.8.

When the installation is complete, a record of the installation and a listing of the licensed products is written to a file called Abaqus_release_InstallLog.log in the abaqus_dir/release/installation_info/ directory. This file is helpful for troubleshooting problems, and it should not be removed.

When you install the Abaqus products on a computer, the installation creates a file called installer.properties in the abaqus_dir/release/installation_info directory. This file, called the replay file, contains information that was used during the product installation, such as the installation directory, license server host, and documentation URL. The -replay command option is available to repeat a previous installation on identical platforms without reentering the same information for each installation. You can use this option to perform a silent installation (no graphical user interface is displayed). It performs an installation identical to the previous installation (same installation directory, same license server host, etc.) using the information stored in the replay file.

The information that was entered for the first installation must be valid for subsequent installations that use the -replay option. All installation error checking is skipped when this option is used. You should make sure that the system meets the requirements as specified in Appendix A, “System requirements,” and that you have write permissions and sufficient disk space in the installation directory before performing the installation. To use the -replay option, do the following:

The client product installation allows you to configure a computer on a Windows platform to run the Abaqus products that have been installed on a mounted network drive. Use this installation to configure multiple computers to run Abaqus from a central server location without installing Abaqus on each computer. The client computer must be able to access the directory containing the Abaqus installation on the network and the Abaqus license server. The shortcuts and uninstaller that are placed on the client computer require about 50 MB of disk space.

When you install the Abaqus products on a computer, the installation creates a file called installer.properties in the abaqus_dir/release/installation_info directory. The client installation utilizes this properties file to perform a silent installation. No graphical user interface is displayed, and all error checking is skipped during the installation on the client computer. To perform a client installation, do the following:

The installation procedure creates a unique command for each release of Abaqus. This command is written in the Commands directory below the Abaqus parent directory (abaqus_dir). For example, the command to run the initial extended functionality release of Abaqus 6.9 (Abaqus 6.9-EF1) is abq69ef1. The command to run subsequent extended functionality releases of Abaqus 6.9 is abq69efn, where n is the maintenance delivery. The installation procedure also creates a link called abaqus to the command for the latest release of Abaqus installed. For a list of all Abaqus command line options, use the help command line option with the appropriate Abaqus execution command. For example, to see the command line options for Abaqus 6.9-EF1, type abq69ef1 help. For a detailed description of Abaqus command line options, see Chapter 3, “Execution Procedures,” of the Abaqus Analysis User's Manual.

On Windows platforms the Commands directory path is added automatically to all users' paths during installation. On UNIX and Linux platforms the Commands directory should be added to each user's path manually. Alternately, a link for each Abaqus release can be defined at the system level or for each user, pointing to the appropriate command in the Commands directory.