Windows installation guide

Important

Administrator access is required.
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 Lumerical default installation

The guidelines in this section show the default installation process of the current release of the Ansys Optics simulation software and Ansys Optics Launcher on a supported Windows computer. For installation of previous versions of Ansys Optics/Ansys Lumerical, see this Knowledge Base.

Download the installation package. (registration required)
Open Windows Explorer and go to where you saved the downloaded zip file.
Right-click on the zip file and 'Extract All'.
Open the extracted folder and run 'Lumerical_Installer.exe'. This is the top-level bootstrap installer that installs both the Ansys Optics Launcher and Ansys Lumerical simulation software.
Follow the instructions on the installation wizard and complete the installation.
- Install the "Ansys Optics launcher" and MPI when prompted.
- By default, the Ansys Optics Launcher will be installed in:
```
"C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\ANSYS Optics\[[verpath]]\Launcher\"
```
- Enabling the MPI firewall exemptions during the installation, adds the rule to your firewall to allow running simulations using the bundled MPI on the local computer.
- Continue and complete the install process using the default settings.
Open the Ansys Optics Launcher:
- From the "Ansys Optics [[ver]]" folder in "Windows Start" > "All Applications"
- Or using the Ansys Optics "Launcher.exe" file in:
```
"C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\ANSYS Optics\[[verpath]]\Launcher\bin\"
```
Select "I have a license from Ansys...".
Choose "...configure my license only for Lumerical products" if will be using only Ansys Lumerical products, then "Go to the licensing setup" and configure Ansys Lumerical to obtain the license from your server.
Otherwise, "configure my license for All Optics products" if you are using Ansys Lumerical together with other Ansys simulation tools e.g. Speos or Zemax. Configure your license as shown in the KB.
Alternatively, to evaluate Lumerical, request a 7-day evaluation license from the Optics Launcher.
If you are joining a workshop, request the license using your workshop ID.

Advanced installation process

The process outlined in this section applies to the current [[ver]] release that comes with the top-level bootstrap installer (Lumerical_Installer.exe) that installs both the Ansys Optics Launcher and the Lumerical Optics simulation software using the default process shown above.
The advanced or custom installation process will install each component onto your local computer with the option to change the installation path for the Ansys Optics Launcher and Lumerical Optics software.
Ensure that Lumerical is not running in the background. e.g. reboot the computer.
Use the advanced installation method if there are any issues with the default process.

Ansys Optics Launcher installation

Run the 'Ansys_Optics_Launcher_data.msi' file in the "Lumerical Suite\Ansys_Optics_Launcher" folder that was extracted from the downloaded zip file.
You have the option to change the installation directory and create a Desktop shortcut.
Follow the instructions to complete the installation.

Ansys Lumerical installation

Open/Run the 'lumerical_data.msi' file found in the "Lumerical Suite" folder that was extracted from the downloaded zip file.
You have the option to change the installation directory. e.g. if you want to install Ansys Lumerical into the same folder as the Ansys Optics Launcher, change the install path to:
```
 "C:\Program Files\ANSYS Optics\[[verpath]]\Lumerical\"
```
or to a different drive/directory as shown:
```
 "D:\ANSYS Optics\[[verpath]]\Lumerical\"
```
Ensure that the all firewall exemptions are enabled.
Follow the instructions to complete the installation.

Custom installation

Open a command prompt with Administrator access
Change directory to the location of the Lumerical installation files (current user's Downloads folder shown in the example below)
Run the "custom install utility batch" file,

cd %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\LUMERICAL_2024R2.02_WINX64\Lumerical_Suite\
custom_install_utility.bat

This extracts the Lumerical application files into the "custom_install_utility" folder in the current working directory in the local drive.
This folder can be copied or moved to a different location. e.g. shared network folder for shared access across all clients.
Run the Lumerical product CAD from the "..\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin" folder:

<path>\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin\fdtd-solutions.exe
<path>\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin\mode-solutions.exe
<path>\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin\device.exe
<path>\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin\interconnect.exe
<path>\custom_install_utility\[[ver]]\bin\cmlc.exe

See this Knowledge Base (KB) for more installation options using 'MSIExec' and the 'Lumerical_Data.msi' package.

Microsoft MPI installation

Run 'msmpisetup.exe' inside the ‘MS-MPI’ folder.
It will prompt with options if the same or newer version of the MPI is already installed.
Install with default options and complete the installation process.

Intel MPI installation

Run 'w_mpi-rt_p_{version}.exe' in the ‘intel_mpi_runtime’ folder.
It will prompt with options if an existing or newer version of the MPI is already installed.
Select default options and complete the installation process.

Job launching presets

See this Knowledge Base (KB) on how to change your "Job launching preset" to run your simulations with Microsoft MPI (default), Intel MPI (remote jobs), without MPI (Local Computer), or custom presets to run on your cluster.

Opening Ansys Lumerical CAD/IDE

See this Knowledge Base (KB) on running Ansys Lumerical CAD/IDE.

Important

Ansys Lumerical default installation