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Installation
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There are two methods of installing ShowSim, which will depend on how the product was delivered to you. If you received a CD with your order, then you can install from the CD as long as it hasn’t been more than a year since the CD arrived in the mail. The CDs can get pretty outdated over time however so it is highly recommended that new installations beyond the first year of purchase be done using an installer download from the internet. You can request download links by sending an email to admin@showsim.com that specifies your ShowSim type (3D, Pro, Lite or Backyard) along with the company name associated with your order, or individual name if you do not have a company.

Installing From CD
When you insert the CD into your CD drive, the installer might automatically run in some cases. If it does not run, you might be prompted with a link to run a program called SETUP.EXE. If that doesn’t happen either, then you will need to browse the files on the CD and then run SETUP.EXE manually. A common mistake is to run the file called ShowSim_3D.msi or similarly named file that matches your version type. Running the .msi file will bypass the installation of the required prerequisites and result in an installation that won’t run, so be sure to run the SETUP.EXE file.

Installing From Downloaded File
When you download ShowSim from the internet, you will have a single file with a .EXE extension and a version number as part of the name. An example file would be showsim_3d_4049.exe, which indicates version 4.0.4.9 of the 3D version. This is a self extracting zip file, so when you first run it you will get the screen seen in Figure 1. From this screen you simply click the Unzip button to begin the installation, which will then lead to the screen shown in Figure 2.

From this point on the installation is the same weather you are installing from the CD or from a downloaded file. The screen seen in Figure 2 will display various components required by ShowSim which must first be installed before the program itself is installed. The listing in Figure 2 shows all possible components, but you might only see one or two of these if some items are already installed on your computer. If ShowSim was previously installed and then uninstalled from your computer, then only the DirectX item will appear in the list, since the WIBU driver and the .NET framework are not removed when you uninstall ShowSim. Note that the DirectX component will always show up in the list even if it is already installed on your computer from a previous ShowSim installation. This is because there is no way to tell if the DirectX component with the proper version is already installed. It does not hurt anything to re-install the Managed DirectX component over top of itself if it is already installed however.

DirectX Installer
Figure 3 shows the DirectX installer that should appear prior to the main ShowSim installer running. Just click the “I accept” button and continue through the “next” buttons in the usual way until the installation completes. If you have installed showsim on your computer previously then this component will actually already be installed on your computer and you can skip this step by clicking the Cancel button.

WIBU Key Installer
This installer will appear after DirectX completes if your version of ShowSim is using a USB dongle for license verification. This component can not be skipped but it should only appear the first time you install ShowSim. If you have an installation CD you can also run this installer by itself by opening the Wibu32-64 folder on the CD and running the program called WkRuntime.exe. Running the fire directly should not be done unless there is a problem with the dongle not being recognized after installing everything the normal way first.

ShowSim Installer
The last step in the process is the ShowSim installer seen in Figure 5. Like most installers, you simply click “I agree” on the license terms page and then continue clicking the Next buttons until the install process completes. A ShowSim icon should then appear on your desktop which can then be used to run ShowSim.

Installation Folders
There are two installation folders created on your computer by the ShowSim installer. The path shown in Figure 6 is the program directory where the main program file is stored. If you are running a 64 bit operating system then the folder the program is stored under is not the Program Files folder but rather it’s 32 bit equivalent named “Program Files (x86)”. In the event that a 64 bit version of ShowSim is released then it will be in the Program Files folder, but currently there is only a 32 bit version of ShowSim.

The second installation folder is the program data folder stored at the path seen in Figure 7. This folder holds all the user data such as shows, effect libraries, background images, music files and the main database file. The database file, named showsim_db.db3, contains all the shows, effects, inventory, program settings etc. used by ShowSim. You can actually migrate your ShowSim working environment and all data to another installation of ShowSim running on another computer by simply transferring this file to the other computer.

Migrating Data From Demo Program
If you were using the Demo version of ShowSim prior to purchasing a license and wish to save your work that was created there, you can actually do this pretty easily by transferring the showsim_db.d3 file from the Demo folder into the licensed folder. It is actually not necessary to uninstall the demo before installing the licensed version, which makes it easier to do this file transfer.

Running ShowSim
The first time you run ShowSim it is necessary to have a connection to the internet in order to verify the license. After this first connection you can run the program 30 times before needing to connect to the internet again. If you are connected to the internet but still getting an error message about ShowSim not being able to connect to the server, it is usually firewall settings or other security software blocking access. See the article on Server Connection Problems for more detailed discussions of this issue.

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Figure 1: This is the first screen you see if installing from a self extracting .zip file that was downloaded from the server.
Figure 1: This is the first screen you see if installing from a self extracting .zip file that was downloaded from the server.



Figure 2: This screen shows how many prerequisites must be installed prior to installing the actual ShowSim program.
Figure 2: This screen shows how many prerequisites must be installed prior to installing the actual ShowSim program.



Figure 3: The installer screen for the DirectX component.
Figure 3: The installer screen for the DirectX component.



Figure 4: Installer screen for the WIBU Key component.
Figure 4: Installer screen for the WIBU Key component.



Figure 5: Installer screen for ShowSim
Figure 5: Installer screen for ShowSim



Figure 6: Installation folder for the main program executable file.
Figure 6: Installation folder for the main program executable file.



Figure 7: Installation folder for the program data and database files.
Figure 7: Installation folder for the program data and database files.


 


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