In rare cases, it could be that the PLAXIS 2D mesh generation fails to work, due to Microsoft Windows security settings: one of these security settings does not allow the creation of 8+3 filenames, which are needed to generate a 2D mesh.
In the registry, please set the value for this key to 2:HKLMSystemCurrentControlSetControlFileSystemNtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation
See also:
If changing this setting still does not result in a successfully generated mesh, a workaround could be to install PLAXIS 2D in a folder name that already complies to the 8+3 short path naming convention and excluding any spaces, e.g. you can install PLAXIS 2D in C:\PLAXIS and change the Windows TEMP to a simpler folder name as well (C:\Temp).
To change the location of the System Temp folder (on Windows 7), follow these steps: