Software Installation Instructions

This section provides instructions for installing the MPI software.

Note: You must have administrator privileges and any anti-virus software may need to be disbaled prior to installing the MPI software.

WARNING!
You must reboot your system! If you have not used an InstallShield for Windows Installer program before, the Install Shield will need to install InstallShield installer files before actually installing the MDK. You will have to reboot your system after these files are installed. Please shut down all programs before running the InstallShield for the first time.

WARNING!
If you are upgrading from a previous MPI software release (04.01.xx or older), you will need to remove or archive all previous releases. This will prevent any conflicts between old and new files. To remove the previous MPI software release, select Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Select the MPI Development Toolkit entry and click on the Add/Remove button.

Note: The MPI software release can also be removed by running the MDK InstallShield and choosing the Remove option.

The MDK distribution comes in an InstallShield distribution. Key components of the distribution are:
      – Device driver (meixmp.sys for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win7)
      – Controller and node binaries
      – MPI dynamic link library
      – Utilities
      – Example applications

To install the MPI software release, click on MPI_xx.xx.xx_Win32_Setup.exe. Follow the InstallShield instructions. The InstallShield begins installing the device driver, DLL, and set the environment variables.

Using Multiple Versions (MPI 4.0 and later)

When installing a newer version of the MPI (i.e. 04.00 to 04.02), the installer will prompt to remove the old version or install the new version in a separate directory.

If you choose to remove the old version, it is uninstalled (files modified or created after the original installation are not removed) and prompt the user to reboot the machine. The machine must be restarted prior to installing the new MPI.

If you choose a multiple version installation, the files are installed to a new directory, new shortcuts are created (old shortcuts are not affected), and the environment variables are modified to reflect the most recently installed version.

If you want to use a previous MPI installation, the environment variables must be modified to reflect the desired version. This can be accomplished manually or by running the installer for the desired MPI version and selecting Repair.

The following are required to install on Windows 7:

   – The user must be an administrator.
   – For Mechaware installation, the user needs to right-click the installer and select the “run as       administrator” option.

The 03.04.24 installer runs correctly on Windows 7 32-bit (04.02 adds support for Windows 7 64-bit). Older versions of the installer fail to install the driver folder (..\XMP\MPI\WinNt\Driver2K). To use older versions of the installer with Windows 7 32-bit this folder must be copied from an existing WinXP install.