PLAXIS CONNECT Edition versions

The CONNECT Edition versions of PLAXIS 2D and PLAXIS 3D installations can be run with commands line parameters, for instance, to perform an automated, silent installation.

The procedure below is the same as described in the link about the CONNECTION Client: Installation - Silent.

Silent installation options

To perform a silent installation you need to start Windows Command Prompt, change the directory to the location of the PLAXIS installer and use one of the following command parameters, depending on which product and version you are installing.

The example below concerns the installation of PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V21 Update 1:

• Silent installation (quiet): Setup_Plaxis2Dx64_21.01.00.479.exe /q
• Silent installation (silent; same as quiet): Setup_Plaxis2Dx64_21.01.00.479.exe /s
• Passive installation (progress bar only with default options): Setup_Plaxis2Dx64_21.01.00.479.exe /passive

Legacy PLAXIS versions

The legacy versions of PLAXIS 2D and PLAXIS 3D installations are based on Inno Setup. Since the PLAXIS 2012 versions, the following command line parameters are available for the setup:

• /SILENT: Shows GUI, but clicks automatically on “Next” everywhere. Unfortunately, this does not always work for the (Codemeter) driver installation.
• /VERYSILENT: like /SILENT but does not show the Installation GUI. Unfortunately, this does not always work for the (Codemeter) driver installation.
• /NODONGLE: Specific for Plaxis setups, skips the driver installation.
• /NO7ZIP: This is specific for Plaxis setups: skips the 7zip installation (regardless of whether the user selected to install it or not).
• /NOCONNECT: This is specific for Plaxis setups: skips the Connect installation (regardless of whether the user selected to install it or not). Note that this will also disable the PLAXIS news feed about product updates and notifications on the computer via PLAXIS Connect. For more details, see link [PLAXIS Connect]
• /NOEXTRAS: Specific for Plaxis setups and skips installation of additional tools. This includes the same as the parameters /NODONGLE, /NO7ZIP and /NOCONNECT
• /DIR="x:dirname" Overrides the default directory name displayed on the Select Destination Location wizard page. A fully qualified pathname must be specified.

How to perform a silent installation

In order to perform an automated, silent installation, you can use the /SILENT or /VERYSILENT option. Since the CodeMeter drivers uses a third party installation (MSI format), installing the drivers silently will not always work. For this purpose, it would be better to exclude this driver installation by using the /NODONGLE parameter, and then afterwards install the latest CodeMeter driver version using the CodeMeter RunTime kit’s silent installation. With e.g., CodeMeter runtime kit version 5.00 or later, this should be achieved by using the parameters /ComponentArgs "*":"/qn" for the Codemeter installer. Note: to get all possible command line arguments, use the /? argument.

Hints

Plaxis Connect

For automatic installation of PLAXIS Connect, it is necessary that PLAXIS Connect is closed and does not run in the background.

User credentials

One thing that cannot be done automatically via command line parameters, is filling in the registration/user credentials. If you have a valid PLAXIS installation (on e.g. a different computer), then you could follow this procedure:

• The full installer is a 7zip self-extracting archive. If you would extract this downloaded compressed archive file first, you will get a folder that contains some folders and a setup executable (*.exe)
• copy the file USERDEF.PUF into this new folder with this setup executable file
• Now run the installer with the desired command line parameters: the registration/user credentials are now read from that file.