Installing the Autodesk Simulation Mechanical 2016 Local (Off-Line) User's Guide

1. Download the appropriate User Guide installer:
   • For Simulation Mechanical 2016 (the desktop product), download User_Guide_2016_Installer.exe."
   • For Simulation Mechanical Flex 2016 (the cloud-computing product), download "User_Guide_2016_Installer_Flex.exe."

   Note:The contents of the Simulation Mechanical Help publication are identical for the desktop and Flex versions. The only difference is the default installation path. Each installer is designed to automatically determine the program installation folder and make this the default extraction location for the Help files.

2. Run the installer.

   Note: You must have administrative privileges, or you must run the installer as an administrator. This is necessary because files will be written to the "Program Files" branch of the system hard drive. If you do not have an administrator account, right-click the installer file and choose the "Run as Administrator" command. Provide the necessary credentials when prompted.

   The default installation path depends upon your version of Autodesk Simulation Mechanical:

   • The local Help for Simulation Mechanical 2016 installs to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Simulation 2016\Help by default.
   • The local Help for Simulation Mechanical Flex 2016 installs to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Simulation Mechanical Flex 2016\Help by default.

   Even if you installed the simulation software to a user-specified location, the correct Help installation path is detected automatically based on the ALGOR_ROOT_2016 or ALGOR_ROOT_2016_WS environment variable. These variables are path specifiers created during installation of the desktop and Flex versions of Simulation Mechanical 2016, respectively.

   If the environment variable is missing from your computer, then the Installation Path data field will contain the string "%ALGOR_ROOT_2016%" or "%ALGOR_ROOT_2016_WS%" (rather than the actual path that the environment variable normally specifies). In this case, the local Help content would be extracted to an invalid location (if you proceed). You can manually specify the appropriate installation path for the local Help files, or click the folder icon to browse and navigate to the Help sub-folder. However, the absence of one of these environment variables indicates a likely problem with the program installation. Alternatively, the version of the local Help installer that you downloaded may not match the version of the installed simulation software.

3. Extract the files.

   Click Yes to extract the Simulation Mechanical User's Guide to the specified folder. Click No to cancel the installation.

   Note: The Local Help content is available from within Autodesk Simulation Mechanical when you are working off-line (no Internet connection). When you are on-line, Help content is accessed from the on-line Help website (http://help.autodesk.com/view/ASMECH/2016/ENU).