Obtaining the Licence file for WinGX

• For WinGX and Ortep-3, licence files are necessary for the programs to run. To obtain these, fill in the web form at the following page, after which a licence file will be automatically Emailed to you:
  • WinGX and ORTEP Licence Form webpage: [http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/~louis/software/licenseform.html]
  • [CCP14 UK Web Mirror] | [Canadian CCP14 Mirror] | [US CCP14 Mirror] | [Australian CCP14 Mirror]

Downloading and installing WinGX

• It is best to do the following using the system administrator's account so a) everyone can use the system and b) DLLs can be copied into the correct area. (Though there may be some permissions or custom parameters for each individual user to set depending on the permissions/security setup of the NT system - e.g., the "WINGXDIR" variable where the user WinGX ini file would be located)

• Download WinGX - http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/~louis/software/wingx/ver164.html
• [CCP14 UK Web Mirror] | [Canadian CCP14 Mirror] | [US CCP14 Mirror] | [Australian CCP14 Mirror]

  (And any other program you are interested in Installing as part of the WinGX suite - Win DIRDIF, Ortep-3, Win Platon, GUI WinSTRUPLO, Povray, etc)

  (There is also a new method of adding "user defined" programs)

• Extract the Setup.exe file using WinZIP for PKZIP into a temporary directory such as c:\temp

• Run the setup.exe program and install into the default c:\wingx directory.

  

• Now copy over the licence file you have received via E-mail to the WinGX directory as: WinGX-license (normally c:\wingx\ is the installation directory).

• Go into the Start, Settings, Control Panel, System and set the following environment variables.
  

  SET WINGXDIR=c:\wingx
  SET CHECKDEF=c:\wingx\files\check.def
  SET PGFONT=c:\wingx\files\grfont.dat
  
  set RASEXE=c:\wingx\for_prog\raswin.exe
  set NETEXE=c:\progra~1\netscape\commun~1\program\netscape.exe
  set POVEXE=c:\progra~1\pov-ra~1\bin\pvengine.exe
  

  (Reboot your computer for these changes to take effect)

• Read the installation file for some extra information. [http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/~louis/software/wingx/install.html]
• [CCP14 UK Web Mirror] | [Canadian CCP14 Mirror] | [US CCP14 Mirror] | [Australian CCP14 Mirror]
• This includes information on obtaining program for plugging into WinGX such as Win Dirdif, Povray, Ortep-3, GUI WinSTRUPLO, etc....

• Run WinGX, enter into Files, SYSTEM, Applications to link in the plugin programs such as graphics viewer, VRML viewer, etc.

  

• Other Preferences can be set via the File, System, Preferences menu

  

• If you are running WinGX from a shared network or directory area where you do not have write permissions to the wingx.ini file, WinGX may not be able to do basic functions as it requires to be able to write to the wingx.ini file.

  There are two solutions to this.

  1. Make the main wingx.ini file writable (there is a risk that this might be accidentally overwritten as a result).

  2. Every user has their own copy of the wingx.ini configuration file using the SET WINGXDIR parameter to point to this in their local c:\autoexec.bat or user specific network parameter file.

     (e.g., SET WINGXDIR=g:\users\lachlan\wingx )

Most important one : It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL (not just desirable) that the directory pointed to by WINGXDIR has write access - WinGX will fail otherwise. The file is ALLWAYS overwitten during a WinGX session. The only file you need to have in the directory is WINGX.INI - users on a network can thus have their own private versions.