Installing on Windows

This section is for users who wish to install RMG on computers running a Windows operating system. RMG is known to work on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. There are two methods of installing RMG on windows: an automatic installer (recommended) or a source package. You can find both of these on the Downloading RMG page.

Installer Package (Easiest Method)

1. Download the Windows installer file from the Downloading RMG page.

2. Run the installer file and follow the setup instructions. We recommend that you install to the default installation directory C:\RMG to (1) avoid spaces in the installation path and (2) avoid issues with administrative access, particularly in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

   The installer will install a complete set of binaries, source code, database, documentation, and examples by default. You can optionally choose not to install one or more of these things if you prefer. Only the binaries and database are required to run RMG.

   When the installation is complete, you are ready to use RMG.

3. To test that RMG is working, you can try to run one of the examples, such as the “minimal” example. The easiest way to do this is to double-click the RMG.bat file found in the folder containing the example.

Now that you have a working version of RMG, you may wish to install some of the optional features. Once you are ready to run RMG, continue to learning how to create RMG input files, either by hand or via the graphical user interface.

Compiling from Source

If you wish to compile RMG yourself, you will need to install a number of dependencies, described below.

Java SE Development Kit (JDK)

You can download the official implementation from Oracle (previously Sun Microsystems). We recommend Java SE Version 6.

A Fortran compiler

On Windows the easiest Fortran compiler to install is g95. The gfortran compiler from the GNU Compiler Collection (installable via MinGW) is also known to work.

The Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS) and Linear Algebra PACKage (LAPACK)

The easiest way to do this is to download our generic 32-bit DLL files for BLAS and LAPACK from http://github.com/GreenGroup/RMG-Java/downloads. These should be sufficient for most users.

Apache Ant

ant is used to generate Java executables.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Obtain the source package using one of the methods described on the Downloading RMG page.

2. Unpack and move the source package contents to your desired installation directory. We recommend avoiding paths containing spaces and paths to folders that Windows places administrative access restrictions on. Something simple like C:\RMG works best.

3. Set the RMG environment variable to the path of the RMG installation directory.

   • Go to Start --> Control Panel --> System (may need to switch to Classic Control Panel view). Click on the Advanced tab, then click on Environment Variables.
   • In the lower half of the Environment Variables window for System variables, click New.
   • In the New System Variable window, in the Variable name field, type the environment variable name (i.e. JAVA_HOME). In the Variable value field, type the directory in which it was installed.
   • Click OK twice to confirm the change.

   If they aren’t already set, you will need to also set the JAVA_HOME and ANT_HOME environment variables to the installation directories for Java and ant, respectively, as well as add the folders containing the Java and ant binaries to the PATH environment variable.

4. Place the BLAS and LAPACK DLL files (blas.dll and lapack.dll) in the %RMG%\bin directory. You may need to create this directory manually.

5. Compile the programs. The easiest way to do the latter is to execute the file make.bat in the %RMG% directory, either through the command prompt or simply by double-clicking it.

   This batch script does not compile the Java source; for this you must run the command ant jar at the command prompt. If the Java source is compiled successfully, you will see BUILD SUCCESSFUL at the end of the console output.

   You should now have the files RMG.jar, fame.exe, frankie.exe, GATPFit.exe, and dasslAUTO.exe in your %RMG%\bin directory. If these are present, then you have successfully compiled RMG.

6. To test that RMG is working, you can try to run one of the examples, such as the “minimal” example. The easiest way to do this is to double-click the RMG.bat file found in the folder containing the example.

Now that you have a working version of RMG, you may wish to install some of the optional features. Once you are ready to run RMG, continue to learning how to create RMG input files, either by hand or via the graphical user interface.

RMG Viewer/Editor (RMGVE)

The RMG Viewer/Editor (RMGVE) is an accompanying software which can be used for viewing the database of RMG and also the models generated by RMG. The RMGVE is present along with RMG in the %RMG%\RMGVE directory and need not be downloaded separately. To run the RMGVE just go to the %RMG%\RMGVE directory and execute RMGVE 20080101.bat on the command line. The RMGVE directly reads the RMG database %RMG%\database\RMG_database which includes the thermo data and the kinetics data. Please refer to Using the RMGVE to see how to modify the RMG database.