How To Add IDL X.x To Your Workstation
Last Modified: March 26, 2013
This document is also available on the WEB at
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/~software/installs/idl.htm
NOTE: Notation below referring to the “N:” drive means the samba drive served from node jilau1. Check your drive mappings and change the N: drive if necessary to be
\\jilau1\apps
To Install:
Remove Previous Versions:
You should remove any previous installations of IDL before installing the new version. You can use the Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs to do this. For Vista users, that is Start, Control Panel, Programs & Features.
Full Local Install:
This makes a full install to your machine that is not dependent on the network for its files. Please note comments about license files below for desktop and laptop machines.
1) First, log onto your local machine as Administrator so that the install process will place IDL into the All Users section of the preferences.
2) Locate
N:\Win\IDLX.x
where the ‘X.x’ is the most recent version. You will need to double click on the program
N:\Win\IDLX.x\idlX.xwinx86_##.exe
where the ## is either ‘32' or ‘64' for the type of processor your machine has. If you do not know, use the ‘32' version. Double-clicking will begin the install since these are self extracting installer programs.
Follow the instructions in the installer and point the destination to your C: or other local drive.
Some item to note in the install are:
- take the default location of C:\Program Files\ITT for installation unless you specifically need some other location. Note that the previous name of RSI is now called ITT.
- in the Select Features screen just take the defaults of IDL Program Files and Demos if you want them. You may select others if you need them but any that indicate that they need a special license won’t work since we are not licensed for them.
- When you get to the section on licensing, say “NO”, we have a central license server. Click Finish in the next screen to complete
License Files and Servers:
You will still need to have access to a license file at runtime For most machines in JILA this will be from our jilau1 license server. However you must be on one of the JILA subnets in order to access this license server. For laptops or other special machines outside our subnets, you can still obtain a local license.dat file.
Desktops - jilau1 License Server:
All that is needed is to point the environment variable for the license manager to our jilasrv machine.
- Select Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, and the Advanced Tab.
- Click on the Environment Variables button
- In the System Variables section, click on the LM_LICENSE_FILE variable and click the Edit button. If this environment variable does not exist, create it using capital letters and underscores just like I’ve written it here.
- If there are already any reference paths to previous IDL, RSI or ITT license files, delete them. Do not delete other path references for other programs such as VNI or WAVE.
- Add in to the beginning of the path the following information
1700@jilau1.colorado.edu;1700@yotta.colorado.edu
using semicolons if necessary to separate it from other paths. This points the license manager on your Windows machine to port 1700 on node jilau1. When you start idlde, this will check your version and hand back an ‘OK’ and let your idlde start up. Note that you must be on one of our JILA subnets for this to work.
Laptops - Getting Your License.dat Code:
For laptop machines or machines outside our JILA subnet, you need to request a local license code for your machine. This is a one time process and once the code is in place it will run from then on.
First you need to discover your machine’s hostid. To do this select Start, Programs, IDL X.#, License Wizard to start the License management program. Next select the Request radio button and it will display information about your machine. Copy the Hostname and the Host ID information from Option 2. Exit the license program.
Now apply for the license. The University wide site license requires each user to obtain a license file code through our ITS department. Full details on this process can be found at
http://www.colorado.edu/its/tpsitelic/
then click on IDL. Sent the e-mail as described there to our University site license manager (sitelic@colorado.edu) who will record it and send a license code back to you via e-mail. There is currently a $20 handling fee from ITS for this process, so you will have to provide a SpeedType number to the site manager.
Once you receive the reply e-mail you will need to run the license program again like you did to get the hostid information. Except this time you will use the License button and install your key and save it.
At this point IDL is ready to use. You may double click on the icon in Start, Programs, IDLX.x, IDL or on the desktop icons to start the program.