Actel Designer 8.1 for Windows

General Information	Install Service Pack 2
Installing to local PC drive	License setup

General Information

The Actel application runs on Windows XP. It must be installed using the Xweb interface. It requires about 880 MB of diskspace.
Release notes for this version are available

Client PC setup

Procedure for installing the program on the local PC drive.

Log on with local system administrator privileges.
Begin by going to the Xweb application installation webpage:
http:\\xweb.slac.stanford.edu
In the list of applications that appears, find "Actel Designer 8.1" and click on the "Multiple Step Install" button to its right.
At the bottom of the next page, click on "Step 1 - Main `app".
After agreeing to the license terms at the bottom of the next page, the following page lists at the top "Step 1 - Main `app". Click this option, ignoring the "License keys" window below that.
On the next "File Download" page, you can choose either "Run" or "Save". The first choice is the easiest. It will download the installation files and then automatically proceed to install the application. The "Save" option only downloads the installation files. You then have to go to the location where you saved the downloaded files and doubleclick on the *.exe file. This unzips the install files into a sub-Folder. After the unzipping completes, go to the new subfolder and double-click on the "setup.exe" file, which will initiate the install.
On the next security warning page, click again on "Run", in case you chose "Run" in the previous step.
After the installation files are downloaded to the local PC, they are extracted automatically (if you selected 'Run' previously).
Finally the Actel "License Information" window appears, which you can ignore and continue.
Next, the Actel setup program window appears. in which you click through the first several windows in obvious ways, including 'yes' to the licenses agreement.
The "Choose Destination Location" window then appears. This prompts for the local Folder location where you would like to install the application.
The next window, subtitled 'Select Features', prompts for the components you wish to install. The items to check are 'ViewDraw Libraries', and 'VITAL'.
The installion process then begins, displaying a progress bar as well as the "Designer v8.1 Release Notes" window , which you can do with as you like.
After the installion process completes, the "Licensing Requirements" window appears, in which you can select the option: "I already have a license installed, complete my installation" and continue.
The installation is complete, except for the separate license setup, and you can either close the Xweb webpage or select Step 2 to Install Service Pack 2 (SP2)
See below for the steps required to set your environment to include a reference to the license server.
The installation procedure creates a Programs Folder entry called "Actel Designer v8.1", which you can use to invoke the program on your PC.
When you first bring up the Designer, and you have not run an earlier version of Designer previously, then a popup window appears, titled 'Check for File Type Association'.
You have to specify whether you would like Actel to be the default program associated with .adb files. Here you can choose your preference.
Another screen then appears, allowing you to choose whether the application should automatically check if an updated version is available from the Actel website. You can again choose the option you prefer.
The last task to perform is to include a reference to the remote license file, in case you haven't already done so for other applications:

Setting up the licensing

Log in as the local Administrator.
Get to the area: start/settings/control panel
Double-click the Systems Folder and select tab 'environment', or, for Windows XP, 'Advanced', then 'environment'.
Set variable 'LM_LICENSE_FILE' to include an entry for the Actel license as follows: (This should to be done as a System variable, not a user variable).
If the variable is already set, add the following entry to the beginning of the list of other entries, preceded by ';', otherwise initialize the list of values with:
27004@sunlics1; 27004@sunlics2; 27004@sunlics3
(The licenses we have for Actel can be used either in our Sun or our Windows environment, on a shared basis).
Be sure to click on 'set', then 'apply', then 'ok', to activate the new setting.

Install Service Pack 2

SP2 naturally requires the existence of the main Designer 8.1 application on your PC.
Release notes for SP2
If not already in the Xweb environment, go to the Xweb application installation webpage:
http:\\xweb.slac.stanford.edu
In the list of applications that appears, find "Actel Designer 8.1" and click on the "Multiple Step Install" button to its right.
At the bottom of the next webpage, click on Step 2 - SP2.
After agreeing to the license terms at the bottom of the next page, the following page again lists at the top "Step 2 - SP2". Click this option, ignoring the "License keys" window below that.
On the next "File Download" page, you can choose either "Run" or "Save". The first choice is the easiest. It will download the installation files and then automatically proceed to install the application. The "Save" option only downloads the installation files. You then have to go to the location where you saved the downloaded files and doubleclick on the *.exe file. This unzips the install files into a sub-Folder. After the unzipping completes, go to the new subfolder and double-click on the "setup.exe" file, which will initiate the install.
On the next security warning page, click again on "Run", in case you chose "Run" in the previous step.
After the installation files are downloaded to the local PC, they are extracted automatically (if you selected 'Run' previously).
Finally the Actel setup installation window appears, Designer v8.1 SP2 update, in which you click on Next.
The next window prompts you for the Destination Folder, which should display as the default location your current installation Folder for the Designer 8.1 main application. Otherwise, Browse to the correct location.
The update then proceeds, completing fairly quickly. After finishing, the install program prompts you whether you want to view the Release Notes. If you answer 'yes', you are placed on the corresponding Actel webpage.

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Bob Boeninger
Last updated: Jan 24, 2008