Lumerical installation guide for Windows (prior releases)

This article provides the standard installation process for Ansys Optics on supported Windows systems.

Requisites

• Administrator access
• Ansys Lumerical license on the Ansys License Manager

Important

For Lumerical prior to 2025 release,

• If you have Microsoft Visual Studio installed, use the advanced installation process shown below and Do Not Install Intel MPI.
• Otherwise, temporarily uninstall Microsoft Visual Studio and the application's installer and re-install this after installing Ansys Lumerical.

Ansys Optics installation

1. Download the installation package. (registration required)
2. Open windows explorer and go to where you saved the downloaded zip file.
3. Right click on the zip file and 'Extract All'. 
4. Open the extracted folder and run 'Lumerical_Installer.exe'. 
5. Follow the instructions on the installation wizard and complete the installation. 
6. Open the Ansys Optics/Lumerical Launcher:
   • From the "Ansys Optics / Lumerical" folder in "Windows Start" > "All Applications" 

   • Using the Optics Launcher executable (.exe) found in: 

       C:\Program Files\Lumerical\<version>\bin\Launcher

      

7. Select "I have a license from Ansys" and proceed to the "licensing setup".
8. In the Licenses tab, configure  Ansys Optics to obtain the license from your license server. 
9. Alternately, you can request an evaluation license to evaluate our simulation tools. 
10. If you are joining a workshop, request for a workshop license using your workshop ID/code. 

Silent install 

• Silent install is done using the "lumerical_data.msi" installation file.
• Open a Windows command prompt as administrator.
• Change the directory to the location of the extracted installation files.
• Run "msiexec" similar to below,

msiexec /i lumerical_data.msi /norestart /qb

Notes on silent installation

The above will still show a basic UI with the progress bar. This will automatically NOT add the Windows firewall exceptions or install the MPI runtime to run Ansys Optics remotely on another Windows machine.

Other options for the msiexec (/qn /quiet /passive) do not work. For a full list of 'msiexec' options; 

msiexec /h

Uninstalling Ansys Lumerical

Uninstall from the Settings page

1. Goto Windows Settings > Apps > Apps & features. 
2. Select "Ansys Optics ..." or "Ansys Lumerical ..." and "Uninstall".

Uninstall from the Control Panel 

1. Open Control Panel 
2. Select Programs -> Programs and Features.
3. Select "Ansys Optics Launcher..."" and "Ansys Lumerical..." and "Uninstall".
4. Follow the directions to remove the application from your machine.

See also

How to obtain a floating license 

How to request an evaluation license 

Obtain a workshop license from the product launcher 

Ansys license manager installation guide for Windows