Installation on windows

As of release 1.10 of McStas, the preferred way to install on Microsoft Windows is using a self-extracting .exe file.

The archive includes all software needed to run McStas, including perl, a c-compiler, PDL, PGPLOT, a vrml viewer and Scilab 4.0. (Use PGPLOT or install Matlab if possible, since support for Scilab will eventually end.)

Installation of all the provided support tools is needed to get a fully functional McStas. (The option not to install the tools is included for people who want to upgrade from a working, previous installation of McStas.)

The safe and fully tested configuration/installation is to install all tools, leaving all installation defaults untouched. Specifically you may experience problems if you install to non-standard locations.

Simply follow the guidance given by the installer, pressing 'next' all the way.

To use grid and cluster computing, you will need an SSH client. McStas is configured to use PuTTY.

For MPI (parallelisation) on Windows, we advice you to install MPICH2 from Argonne National Laboratory including development libraries before installing McStas. Also, your mpiexec.exe must be on the PATH. You may have to customize the mpicc.bat script from the McStas distribution with the proper C compiler and MPI library path.

If you experience any problems, or have some questions or ideas concerning McStas, please contact peter.willendup@risoe.dk or the McStas mailing list at neutron-mc@risoe.dk.

root 2011-06-03