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  • ANSYS Installation Guide for Mac OSX

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Students and teachers may be able to obtain a 50% discount here. Make sure to check the system requirements. Your computer needs at least 4GB of RAM and we to run Parallels Desktop but unless you want to run ANSYS version 14.5 or earlier,  your computer needs at least 8GB of RAM to run ANSYS smoothly on the virtual machine. We also recommend that you have at least 20GB of free hard disk space.

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2. Get yourself a copy of Windows 7, 8 or 10 with 64-bit (X64) from an installation CD or ISO file.

Windows 10 Home is available on the Microsoft Store for $120. Students and teachers may be able to obtain a FREE or severely discounted copy of Windows 10 here. It is accessible as an ISO file to download. IMPORTANT: Make sure it is the 64-bit version (X64).

Info
Cornell University faculty can obtain Windows 7, 8 or 10 for FREE here. Again, please choose the 64 bit version. 

3. Run Parallels Desktop

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11 and follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows.

 If you downloaded Windows as an ISO file, you will simply be asked to drag and drop the ISO file in the box to proceed with the installation process. If you have the Windows installation CD, then simply insert it in the drive when prompted. We suggest that you choose to use Windows for "Design" (for Parallels 10) and "Like a PC" (for Parallels 9)Productivity". Feel free to follow this this excellent installation guide if you need.

Note
titleRequired Configurations

To access the configuration settings of the virtual machine, please see this guide. Note that the virtual machine must be shut down prior to making changes to these settings. Here are some settings modifications that MUST be implemented for ANSYS to work properly with Parallels Desktop.

  1. Memory allocation
    1. Go in the "Hardware" tab and select "CPU & Memory" (for Parallels 9 and earlier, memory settings are found under the "General" tab).
    2. Set the memory allocated to Parallels Desktop to be at least 1280 MB. Make sure 2112 MB. This is because ANSYS 16.0 and later needs this amount of RAM to run the solver. We also highly recommend that the amount of memory you set lies in the green "recommended" range (too much memory allocated to Parallels Desktop will slow down your mac). We do this because ANSYS needs more memory than the default amount of 1024 MB set by Parallels Desktop.
      Image RemovedThis will only happen if your computer has at least 8GB of RAM, hence why we recommend to have at least this amount.
      Image Added
      (Since this computer only has 4GB of RAM, it runs very poorly while in the yellow range)
  2. Folder Sharing
    1. Go to Options>Sharing
    2. Unselect "Share Mac user folders with Windows"
Info
titleRecommended Configurations

We also recommend the following settings for ease of use and optimal performance.

  1. Go in the Options tab
    1. Select "Optimization"
      1. Make sure your settings are set this way.
    2. Select "Sharing"
      1. Have the settings set like so.
      2. This will effectively keep Windows separate from the Mac. It makes using Parallels more intuitive and simple.
    3. Select "Applications"
      1. Disable the sharing so that it looks like this.
  2. Go in the "Hardware" tab and select "CPU & Memory" (for Parallels 9 and earlier, memory settings are found under the "General" tab).
    1. Try setting the number of CPUs (cores) to 2. Test whether the performances of Windows are better, and if the Mac still runs smoothly. The odds are that it will and than ANSYS will compute faster. This is the default setting in Parallels 10.

 

4.

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Obtain and install

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ANSYS

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17.0.

ANSYS now offers a student version of their software for only $25/year. It is available on the ANSYS Student Portal. The functionalities are FREE. The functionalities are more or less the same as in the full version except that it is node structural problems are restricted to 32,000 nodes and fluid problems are restricted to 512,000 (nodes. This is more than enough for what a typical student will need). Please ask Sebastien at sfl32@cornell.edu for information on how to get the ANSYS Student Version.. 

Note
titleFirewall notifications

On your first few uses of ANSYS, Firewall notifications should pop up. Make sure to allow all ANSYS programs to run normally (i.e do not let the Firewall block ANSYS programs). You can verify the allowed program list by going into Start>Control Panel>System & Security>Allow a program through Windows Firewall.

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