Installer.exe. This executable is downloaded from AltiumLive and can be saved anywhere on your hard disk.

Streamlined installation courtesy of the Altium Platform Installer.

There are three key elements to installation, definable across the various pages of the installation wizard, allowing you to control what gets installed, and where:

• Platform Version – connecting to Altium's cloud-based platform repository, you will be presented with a list of versions and revisions of Altium Designer that can be installed. Simply choose the base platform of Altium Designer as required.

• Design Functionality – allowing you to specify which features are installed initially. So whether you are concerned only with PCB Design, or Soft Design, or both, now is your chance to tailor the install (albeit at a coarse level) to suit your needs. This will also have an impact on the initial installation time too!

• Install Location – allowing you to specify the destination folders for the install, in terms of both the Program Files and Shared Documents install locations. These locations become especially important when installing multiple revisions of the same platform version.

The installation itself proceeds in only a fraction of the time compared to previous installation of the software (Summer 09 and earlier). The reason for this being that only a base install of the software is performed, in conjunction with chosen initial features. This allows you to get installed, up and running in the quickest time possible. Once installed, you can further refine your installation, in terms of available features and functionality, from within Altium Designer itself.

Installation Management

Main articles: A Walk Through...Post-Installation Management of your Altium Designer Solution

Post-installation management is performed from within the dedicated Plugins view (DXP?Plugins and Updates). This view presents information about the installation including which version of the Altium Designer platform is installed, how many plugins are installed and whether there are any updates, including a later revision of the platform.

The Plugins view - command central from which to efficiently manage the optional functionality available to the software.

Now, the term Plugin was mentioned briefly, and this is a key concept of the system to understand. The basic unit of installation is referred to as a Module. A module itself is simply a set of files and/or folders to be installed. Two types of module exist in the system – system modules, which must be installed and are handled transparently as part of the initial install and plugin modules, cloud-sourced packets of functionality that are optionally installed or removed by the user as required. It is the plugin module concept that enables the installation to be handcrafted in accordance with design needs.

Functionality is added to, or removed from Altium Designer, through installation or removal of optional plugin modules.

Customization of an Altium Designer installation essentially boils down to management of the available plugins. Install, update, or remove available plugins as and when you need to.

Subscription-based Content Stream

The ability to customize the feature-set of Altium Designer after initial install presents a natural and exciting possibility – the possibility for Altium to present additional features/functionality, in the form of additional plugins, at ANYTIME in the future. Imagine being able to get a new importer, or new FPGA family device support, or add a new supplier for use with the Live Links to Supplier Data feature – as soon as the feature becomes available. No waiting for an official service pack to be prepared. No waiting for features to come in a major release. Altium is able to make that functionality available to you as a series of new plugins in a far more expedient timeframe, providing a cloud-based content stream as it were. A couple of clicks and your installation of Altium Designer is empowered by the new plugin content, with the requested features added to your design arsenal and ready at your disposal – a surefire productivity-enhancer if ever there was one!

So just how can you tap into this stream of new content? How can you ensure that you have the latest plugins as and when available? The answer to this is simple – Altium Subscription.

A good analogy for Altium Subscription could be a train journey. Subscription gets you on-board the train, your fare if you will. The train moves forward and calls at new destination stations along the way. At each station, there is opportunity to take on board a new destination souvenir (a plugin). If you stay on the train (continue to subscribe) you will enjoy visiting a wealth of new destinations as the train moves ever forward in its journey. If you cease subscription, you will have only those souvenirs (plugins) you have so far collected, but will miss getting to see new and exciting destinations and souvenirs thereof as you must alight from the train. Of course, you can always hop back on and re-subscribe, but by staying subscribed you will always have access to the very latest content – and as soon as it is cleared for release from the developers!

Where are the Examples and Libraries?

We all can appreciate using examples to get us up-and-running with specific aspects of the software. At times, such examples showcase a feature, or set of features, that makes the learning curve a little less steep. In a similar fashion, we like to have access to a pre-developed set of libraries, giving us a boost in the choice of components we can use 'out-of-the-box'.

Rest-assured that we very much still have a host of example design projects and component libraries available for you to explore and use within your installation of Altium Designer. Use the following links to access pages containing links to download examples and libraries as required:

Download Examples and Reference Designs

Download Libraries

Installing Multiple Revisions of the same Platform Version

The ability to install multiple different releases of Altium Designer on the same computer has been around for a while allowing you, for example, to fire up Summer 08, Winter 09 and Summer 09 releases if and when needed. However, the ability to install multiple individual builds of the same release of the software has not been possible – until now.

The Installation and Content Management System brings a structural change to the way the software is installed, enabling you to install different revisions of the same version of Altium Designer Platform. The beauty of installing different build revisions lies in the fact that you can quickly access a previous build revision directly, and independently, whereas an upgrade to the platform revision effectively replaces the earlier build with the later one.

Installation Folders

There are two important factors, two key elements if you will, that facilitate the installation of multiple individual build revisions of the same platform version:

• Ability to specify different destination folders during the initial install, in terms of both the Program Files and Shared Documents install locations.

• The system's use of a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) for each independent build revision install. This identifier – which uses the standard 128-bit URN model and is displayed as a 32-character hexadecimal number – is used to uniquely distinguish the application data folders, as well as entries in the registry. When you run a particular build revision instance of Altium Designer, the system handles, through use of this identifier, only those files and registry entries specific to that build revision.

The following sections provide a summary of the install folders for Altium Designer, according to operating system used. To show effectively the folder structure, two example build revisions of the Altium Designer Platform version 10 will be used – the first to be installed in the default destination folders (\AD 10), and the second to be installed along identical paths, but in different target destination folders (\AD 10 - 21yyy).

Windows 7 (or Windows Vista)

• The main installation path for a particular build of Altium Designer is:
   
  \Program Files (x86)\Altium\<SpecifiedProgramFilesLocation>
   
  For the example builds, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Program Files (x86)\Altium\AD 10
  \Program Files (x86)\Altium\AD 10 - 21yyy
   
• Examples, libraries and templates for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Users\Public\Documents\Altium\<SpecifiedSharedDocumentsLocation>
   
  For the example builds, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Users\Public\Documents\Altium\AD 10
  \Users\Public\Documents\Altium\AD 10 - 21yyy
   
• System application data (Mesh, Portal Cache, Updates) and security files (license ALF) for a particular build can be found in the following two directories:
   
  \ProgramData\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  \ProgramData\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>_Security
   
  For the example builds, the paths might therefore be (inserting example GUIDs):
   
  \ProgramData\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \ProgramData\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}_Security
  \ProgramData\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}
  \ProgramData\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}_Security
   
• User application data files (including: DXP.rcs, UserTools.tlt, AdvPCB.dft, AdvSch.dft, last workspace, PCB view configurations) for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Users\<ProfileName>\AppData\Roaming\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  For the example builds, and a user profile of Des Igner, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Users\Des Igner\AppData\Roaming\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \Users\Des Igner\AppData\Roaming\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}
   
• User local application data for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Users\<ProfileName>\AppData\Local\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  For the example builds, and a user profile of Des Igner, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Users\Des Igner\AppData\Local\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \Users\Des Igner\AppData\Local\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}

Windows XP

• The main installation path for a particular build of Altium Designer is:
   
  \Program Files\Altium\<SpecifiedProgramFilesLocation>
   
  For the example builds, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Program Files\Altium\AD 10
  \Program Files\Altium\AD 10 - 21yyy
   
• Examples, libraries and templates for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Altium\<SpecifiedSharedDocumentsLocation>
   
  For the example builds, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Altium\AD 10
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Altium\AD 10 - 21yyy
   
• System application data (Mesh, Portal Cache, Updates) and security files (license ALF) for a particular build can be found in the following two directories:
   
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>_Security
   
  For the example builds, the paths might therefore be (inserting example GUIDs):
   
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}_Security
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}
  \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}_Security
   
• User application data files (including: DXP.rcs, UserTools.tlt, AdvPCB.dft, AdvSch.dft, last workspace, PCB view configurations) for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Documents and Settings\<ProfileName>\Application Data\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  For the example builds, and a user profile of Des Igner, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Documents and Settings\Des Igner\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \Documents and Settings\Des Igner\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}
   
• User local application data for a particular build can be found in the following directory:
   
  \Documents and Settings\<ProfileName>\Local Settings\Application Data\Altium\<PlatformVersion> <GUID>
   
  For the example builds, and a user profile of Des Igner, the paths would therefore be:
   
  \Documents and Settings\Des Igner\Local Settings\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {7DF7280E-CD03-40A9-A6A4-DDD057140F70}
  \Documents and Settings\Des Igner\Local Settings\Application Data\Altium\AD 10 {566C1AFA-49CA-4B17-B7CB-70A2042D8DAC}

Importing Preferences from a Previous Build Revision or Major Release

Main article: Managing Altium Designer Preferences

When you install and launch a new build revision of an Altium Designer Platform version, you will have the opportunity to import preferences from your most recent previous installation at startup. Not only will the preferences be imported, but the user settings will be copied across too –- ensuring the new release opens with the same look and feel you had created in the previous release, even down to the last opened workspace and panel positioning!

Whether you decide to import preferences or not at initial startup of a newly installed build revision of the software, you are free to quickly import preferences from any previous build revision or major release of Altium Designer that you have currently installed, at any time. To import preferences from a previous installed release of the software, simply click on the button, located at the bottom of the Preferences dialog (DXP?Preferences). The associated menu will list all previous build revisions/releases currently installed on your computer, and that can be imported from. Preferences can be imported from the following releases:

• Any individual installed build revision of a version of the Altium Designer Platform (AD10 and beyond).

• Summer 09 release.

• Winter 09 release.

• Summer 08 release.

• Altium Designer 6.

Preferences can be imported from a previously installed individual build revision of the current Altium Designer release (AD10 and beyond), or any of
the supported previous major releases - the choice is yours.

Uninstalling

Uninstalling Altium Designer is performed using the Altium Uninstaller. This dialog-based utility is accessed by running a small (less than 3MB) executable – AltiumUninstaller.exe. This executable is downloaded from AltiumLive and is typically saved to the same location as the AltiumInstaller.exe.

Streamlined uninstall courtesy of the Altium Uninstaller.

The Altium Designer Installations tab of the dialog provides a listing of all Altium Designer installations (AD10 and beyond) on your PC, along with an indication of whether each is currently installed or not, and the main install location (where the DXP.exe file is located). Click on the entry for a particular installation to display more detailed information in the region below, including Product Name, Version and Release Date.

Three buttons control varying degrees of 'uninstall' for the selected installation in the list as follows:

• Uninstall – removes the install folders (program files and shared documents locations) but leaves preferences-based folders alone. This enables you to have a build that is not currently installed, but whose preferences can still be reused, for example by importing into another installed build.

• Remove Preferences – removes just the preferences-based folders, covering system application data and security files, user application data files and user local application data.

• Remove Completely – total removal of the entire installation (i.e. installation folders and preferences folders).

The Global Info tab presents any installed drivers used by the system, which can also be uninstalled as required. Click the Clean button on this tab to remove all downloaded data – data that has been downloaded through the Altium Download Manager. The Items to Clean dialog will appear, from where you can determine what downloaded data to clean (flush):

• Repository Builds Cache – the default location of which is \ProgramData\Altium\AltiumRepository (Windows 7) or \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AltiumRepository (Windows XP).

• Download Manager Data – located at \ProgramData\Altium\AltiumDownloadManager (Windows 7) or \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\AltiumDownloadManager (Windows XP).

• Plugin Content Cache – located at \ProgramData\Altium\PluginContentCache (Windows 7) or \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Altium\PluginContentCache (Windows XP).

The current size on disk that this data occupies is displayed in each case.

Clean downloaded data as part of an uninstall.