PADS PowerPCB 3.5.1 for Windows NT

General Information

Whereas version 3.0 of Power PCB no longer had the translator for bringing in .job files from PADS Perfect on UNIX, the translator is now back in version 3.5.1, fortunately.

The basic idea for running the application is to invoke PADS from the CAE netdrive NT environment under AFS. For those who do not yet have the AFS client software for NT, refer to installing AFS Typically your local 'S' drive is used to mount the SLAC AFS area as a netdrive.

Once you have the AFS client software, which houses all the electronic CAE applications, you can proceed to the installation.

The PADS PowerPCB ver 3.5.1 setup location on the AFS netdrive is:

S:\package\pads\nt\ppcb_351\pc_setup\

• Double-click on the 'AUTORUN.exe' icon.

• In the following menus:

  Select 'Install PowerPCB' menu option

  After agreeing with the usual license agreement matters, Enter your name and company info in the relevant screen.

• In the 'Security Configuration' screen, select 'Floating License' option. The next screen indicates that the Setup program will attempt to communicate with the license server. Click on 'Next'.

• On the 'Specify Security Server' screen, you are prompted to enter the Hostname:

  mdntdl02

  and Port:

  7508

• On the next "Preserve settings?" screen you are prompted to select from among three choices for whether to preserve various default items. You may choose to preserve settings if you have had a previous version of PowerPCB with configuration settings you would like to keep. If you choose to preserve an earlier powerpcb.ini file, complete the details to make that happen in the following selection screen.

• On the following "Setup Type" screen, select the "custom" install, since we do not have the Specctra router.
  On the same menu, select the "Destination Folder" in which you would like local files related to the setup of PowerPCB on your machine to go. This will typically be a local working directory.

  On the "Select Components" menu list, de-select only the Specctra translator, in case it is in fact selected.

• On the "Custom Options" menu, (only) select:
  • change default directories.
    Note: Since we are not selecting "Use executables on network..." the installation procedure *will* actually install the executables on the local disk. This is necessary in order to work around a bug in the application involving CAM-related operations.

• Then you are prompted to specify the local directories that will include design-related files that *you* create. File types that you only use from the installation directory do not need to be specified here. File types that you create definitely include:

  Design Files

  Select any other categories of files you think you will be *creating*, such Library and CAM Output. Naturally you will in any case also be using files from the installation directories. You can change what you specify here later on, by editing your copy of the powerpcb.ini file, which will be in the 'powerpcb' directory of the local directory you specified for installing locally-need application files. For each category you selected you are then prompted for the local directory to sustitute for the default installation directory. Again, this is for housing files *you* create.

• Add to the Programs Folder as you wish. I always recommend including the version number in the Program Folder name.
  At some point you may be reminded that you have "Backup" files from a previous version of PowerPCB, which you can choose to overwrite or not. 'Yes' would in be the right choice normally.

• You can go ahead and reboot the machine

• Log in as the local Administrator.

• Get to the area: start/settings/control panel

• Double-click on the 'system' icon.

• In the control panel select tab 'environment'.

• Set system variable 'LM_LICENSE_FILE' to include an entry for the PADS license as follows:
  If the variable is already set, add the following entry to the end of the other entries, preceded by ';', otherwise initialize the list of values with:

  7508@mdntdl02

• If there is a user variable called 'PADS_LIC_FILE', set to 7508@mdntdl02, you can go ahead and remove it, since it is essentially redundant now.

• Click on 'Set', then on 'Apply', then on 'OK'

• It may be useful to transfer the Program Folder entry for PowerPCB from its current location in the Administrator Profile to that of "All Users", so anyone logging in to your PC has access to the application. This change requires Admin privileges. The Program Folders for various users are in folder c:\winnt\Profiles\.
  The desired destination folder is "All Users\Start Menu\Programs".
  Drag to that location the PADS entries that are initially in the Administrator or other related user's folder.

• It turns out that on the order of 110 MB of stuff is copied to your local PC, to the directory you specified during the installation. One of the folders in this directory is called 'Documentation', containing about 55 MB. This directory is not needed, as it is independent of the application programs. These are stand-along PDF files. Furthermore, they are copies of the same directory in the relevant installation directory on your AFS S: drive. So, this folder can simply be deleted from your local drive.

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Bob Boeninger
Last updated: September 22, 2000