7.1. Silent Product and License Manager Installation

Caution: A silent license manager installation could shut down the Ansys, Inc. License Manager, affecting other users who are using that license server machine.

You can deploy an Ansys, Inc. product installation in silent mode. The general form to run a silent product installation, including the client licensing, from the Start>Run menu is:

setup.exe -silent -product_flag

Note: In Windows it is necessary to run silent commands from an administrator prompt. To access a Run as Administrator command prompt, click Start Screen> All apps> right-click the Command Prompt Icon> select Run as Administrator.

The above form will install the products specified (see the list of product_flags in the previous section). Additional command line arguments are available; see the list below.

For example, to install TurboGrid and Icepak to the default installation directory, issue the following command:

setup.exe -silent -install_dir "C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc" -turbogrid -icepak

Note: If you do not specify a product flag, all products will be installed. Where multiple geometry interfaces types are offered, the "reader" option will be installed.

To install the Ansys License Manager on Windows systems that will act as license servers, you must run setup.exe with the -LM option:

setup.exe -silent -LM

The silent license manager installation is valid only for the default Licensing Configuration option "Run the Ansys Licensing Interconnect with FLEXlm." See Silent License Manager Installation Instructions of the Ansys Licensing Guide for more information.

If you are installing the license manager to a non-default installation directory, you can use the silent installation method, but only for the initial installation. To change the license manager installation directory for future installations, you will need to uninstall the license manager before reinstalling to a different directory.

You can use the following arguments when running a silent installation:

`-silent`	Initiates a silent installation.
`-install_dir` "`path`"	Specifies the directory to which the product is to be installed. For the installation directory, you must enclose the path in quotes if you have spaces in the pathname. If you want the product to install to the default location, you can omit the `-install_dir` argument. The default location is *<`os drive`>:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\*.
`-product_flag`	Specifies one or more products to install. If you omit the `-product_flag` argument, all products will be installed. See the list of valid `product_flags` above.
`-productfile` "`path`"	You can specify an options file that lists the products you want to install. To do so, you must provide a full path to a file containing desired products. See Specifying Products with an Options File for more details.
`-help`	Displays a list of valid arguments for a silent installation.
`-licfilepath` "`path`"	Specifies the location of the license file to install. If the path is not specified or if the path is the same as the existing license file, the license file will not be installed. Valid only when doing a silent license manager installation (setup.exe -LM).
`-setliclang` `language`	Specifies a language to use for the server ANSLIC_ADMIN utility and the Ansys, Inc. Licensing Interconnect log file. Use the language directory name in the language subdirectory of the licensing directory (en-us, fr, de, etc.) as the `language` value. This flag can be used during a GUI installation as well. Valid only when doing a license manager installation (setup.exe -LM).
`-licserverinfo`	Specifies information to be used by the client for the license server. Valid only in conjunction with a silent installation (setup.exe). The format is: Single license server: `LI port number`:`FLEXlm port number`:`hostname` Example: 2325:1055:abc Three license servers: `LI port number`:`FLEXlm port number`:`hostname1`,`hostname2`,`hostname3` Example: "2325:1055:abc,def,xyz" The default values for the Licensing Interconnect and FlexNet port numbers (2325 and 1055, respectively) will be used if they are not specified. However, you do need to include the colons. In a three-server environment, you also need to enclose the values in quotes (Windows only). Example: ::abc or "::abc,def,xyz" Information specified via `-licserverinfo` will be appended to existing information in the ansyslmd.ini file. To change information already in your ansyslmd.ini file, you must use the ANSLIC_ADMIN utility.
`-lang`	Specifies a language to use for the products.
-autodetect_cads	Automatically determines if each CAD system is installed on your computer. If the CAD is installed, the appropriate associative interface is enabled. If the CAD is not installed, the reader interface is enabled.

Caution: To avoid the possibility of installation failure, we strongly recommend that you place quotation marks around all paths contained in command line arguments.

Example:

-install_dir “C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc”

-productfile “C:\temp\optionsfile”

The silent installation process will automatically close certain applications, possibly resulting in lost data. You should always close all programs before starting a silent install. A silent install will first install any necessary prerequisites that are not already on your system and then continue with the installation. You must have administrative privileges to install prerequisites; if not, the silent install will exit and write a message to the log file.

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 is now required for running Ansys products. If your installation computer(s) does not have .NET 4.6.2 installed, the installation program will install .NET 4.6.2 as a prerequisite and may require a system restart after exiting the installation and before running any Ansys products. If this is the case, a restart message can be found in the install.err error file.

Installation log files are located in the installation directory: install.log contains installation messages, and install_licconfig.log contains licensing installation messages. In rare circumstances with a silent licensing installation, the licensing installation messages may not be written to the install_licconfig.log (for example, if the silent licensing installation aborts); in these cases, you may find error messages in the .ansys_install_temp_licconfig_<user>_<index>.log file, located in %TEMP%.

For more information on the silent license manager installation, see Silent License Manager Installation Instructions of the Ansys Licensing Guide.

Specifying Products with an Options File

You can also specify an options file on the command line using the -productfile "path" option. The options file can specify which products you want to install. The options file can contain all possible products, with the products you do not want to install commented out, or it can contain only the products you want to install. An example options file is shown below. In the example, Creo Parametric and NX are commented out using the acceptable comment indicators. When using the options file, do not include the dash (-) before the product name.

Options file example:

mechapdl
ansyscust
autodyn
cfdpost
cfx
optislang
turbogrid
fluent
polyflow
icepak
::proe
REM ug

To run with NX and Creo Parametric:

NX: Verify that your UGII environment variables are set, and the configuration will pick them up automatically.

Creo Parametric: Verify that the following environment variables are set:

PROE_START_CMD242=C:\Program Files\PTC\Creo 10.0.0.0\Parametric\bin\parametric.bat (or your Creo Parametric start command)

PROELOADPOINT= C:\Program Files\<Creo_dir>

Silent Prerequisites Installation

The Ansys, Inc. product installation requires several prerequisites. These prerequisites often require administrative permissions to install. If you want to install as a non-administrative user but require prerequisites, you can install the prerequisites separately by running ProductConfig.exe from the top level directory as an administrator. You can also install the prerequisites silently using the following command:

ProductConfig.exe -silent

Note: On an HPC cluster environment, prerequisites must be installed on each cluster execution node.

7.1.1. Silent Product Configuration/Unconfiguration

You can also run the ProductConfig.exe via command line (that is, silent mode) to configure or unconfigure products.

From each client machine, run the ProductConfig.exe -silent with the following options specified on separate lines (see the example below): -config, -unconfig, -prereqs, and -product_flag. These options are described below.

-config/-unconfig -- Use with the -silent option to indicate that products should be configured/unconfigured.
-prereqs -- Required to install the necessary prerequisites on your system. Prerequisites must be installed once on each machine.
-product_flag -- Use to specify which products should be configured; see the above list of Product Flags. If you do not specify one or more products, all products that have been installed will be configured.
Use the -help option for a list of commands available for use with ProductConfig.exe.

An example command for silent configuration is:

"\\machineabc\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\v242\ProductConfig.exe" -silent -prereqs
"\\machineabc\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\v242\ProductConfig.exe" -silent -config -<product_flag>

Note: When performing -config on one or more products, the -prereqs option must be run prior to running the -config option as shown in the example above.

All operations and error messages that are encountered while using the silent product configuration/unconfiguration option are written to the productConfig.txt file in the %TEMP% directory of the client machine. No log files are written to the machine that is hosting ProductConfig.exe.

7.1.2. Silent Media Installation

To run a silent installation from the media, you can either:

Copy the contents of each DVD to a folder on the machine's hard disk such that the 242-<number>.dvd files of each DVD are located in the same directory. You can then proceed with the silent installation as described earlier.
Place all of the media in separate drives (any combination of virtual ISO mounts or hardware drives) so that they can be accessed simultaneously during the installation. Then run the silent installation as described earlier, but include the additional -media_dir2 <path> and -media_dir3 <path> options as needed for each drive:
```
setup.exe -silent -product_flag -media_dir2 <path>
```
The installer uses the mount directory from which it was launched as the first media path; you need to specify only the location of the subsequent DVD(s) using the -media_dir2 and -media_dir3 options shown in the example above.

7.1.3. Silent Uninstall

To run a silent uninstall, run the following from some location other than the \v242 directory:

C:\> <installation path>\v242\Uninstall.exe -silent

The silent uninstall will unconfigure and remove all products and remove the entire \v242 directory, including any user files or subdirectories that you have added to the \v242 directory.

To uninstall individual products, use the product_flags listed in the Product Flags table in conjunction with the -silent argument.

Note: Geometry interfaces cannot be uninstalled using these commands.

For example, to uninstall only TurboGrid and Icepak, issue the following command:

C:\> <installation path>\v242\Uninstall.exe -silent -turbogrid -icepak

You can also issue the -help option to see a list of valid arguments for a silent uninstall.

Uninstalling CFD-Post — CFD-Post can be installed as a standalone product. As a standalone product, it is also automatically installed with Fluent, Polyflow, and Icepak. To uninstall the standalone version of CFD-Post, you must specify -cfdpost as well as all of the above products that you have installed.

Note that CFD-Post is also installed with CFX; however, you do not need to uninstall CFX to uninstall the standalone version of CFD-Post, and uninstalling the standalone version of CFD-Post will not remove the CFD-Post capability from CFX.