FAQ: Double-clicking ATK desktop icon, nothing happens (Windows)

[Anders Blom]

What to do if you have installed ATK 2010.02 (or 2010.01) on Windows, and double-click then desktop icon, but absolutely nothing happen?

The cause of this problem is that there is another installed program which also provides Qt 4.x libraries, but this program appears before ATK in the path. The most typical example is MIKTeX, which additionally has a slightly nasty habit of inserting itself at the beginning of the path. This means that if you install MIKTeX after ATK, the ATK desktop icon will stop working, and if it already is installed when you install ATK, the desktop icon will not function either.

To solve this, simply move the MIKTeX part of the path to after ATK's vnl/bin directory.

To change system environment variables, follow these steps.

1. From the desktop, right-click My Computer (or just Computer, in Windows Vista/7) and click Properties.
2. In the window that appears, click on the Advanced tab (or the Advanced system settings link, in Windows Vista/7)
3. Click the Environment Variables button.
4. In the Environment Variables window (see attached picture), select the PATH variable under "Systems Variables" and click Edit. Each different directory is separated with a semicolon; what you need to do is move MIKTeX to the end.

Tip: You may want to copy the whole path definition and paste it into Notepad and edit it there, as it's very hard to see what goes on in the small edit field.

NOTE: I cannot guarantee that this will not render some part of MiKTeX non-functional. However, I have MiKTeX installed in nice coexistence with ATK, after having followed the steps above.

An alternative (which e.g. can be used if for some reason you discover that MiKTEX stops working) is to set the "Start in" folder of ATK to the vnl/bin directory instead. To do this, right-click the ATK desktop icon and choose Properties. Copy the specification of "Target" to "Start in" and just remove "vnl.exe" from the end (see second attached picture).

[Twisty]

Dear ,
i have installed atk 2010.02 in windows and changed the env. variable as you hav instructed but it did not work. i m posting the path var of mine..please see if there is any problem.

%systemroot%\system32;%systemroot%;%systemroot%\system32\wbem;e:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2007a\bin;e:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2007a\bin\win32;%ISEROOT%\bin;c:\cygwin\bin;D:\Program Files\Agilent\IO Libraries Suite\bin;D:\Program Files\IVI Foundation\IVI\bin;D:\Program Files\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\Bin\; D:\PROGRA~1\ULTRAE~1;D:\Program Files\QuantumWise\ATK 2008.10\bin;D:\Program Files\QuantumWise\atk-2010.02\vnl\bin;D:\Program Files\QuantumWise\atk-2010.02\nlpython\bin;F:\Python25\;d:\program files\miktex 2.7\miktex\bin;F:\Program Files\Tecplot\TecFocus 2009\Bin;F:\Python25\;F:\Program Files\Tecplot\Tec360 2009\Bin;

please see if anything i need to change.

[Anders Blom]

Hard to say, but what you can do to figure out if indeed the Qt libraries is the issue at hand, is to open a terminal (Start>Run>"cmd") and type "qtcore4.dll" at the prompt. This will most likely display an error message, but the title of the error dialog shows the location of the DLL file. If this is not vnl/bin, then you need to move things around in the path some more.

[Twisty]

Dear,
i have opened the cmd and wrote the qtcore4.dll. it shows the path is ok. but the problem is when i wrote vnl or click on vnl it first run and then disappear. should i install something with it. please help me my demo license is going to end in next 28 days. i dont know but my thesis on CNTFET is to be done as quick as possible.

[Anders Blom]

I wouldn't worry about the 1 month limit, the trial license can be extended. However, be advised that you may not publish or use any results obtained with a demo version of ATK for real work, like a PhD thesis etc. Your problem is unusual, and I don't have a clear idea what might be the problem. I would make sure to place the VNL-related parts of the PATH up front, as the first entry of the PATH. Also, try (just to make sure) to reboot so that the PATH takes effect. Sometimes the location of DLLs is cached. Also, you can try to use the vnl/bin directory as the startup directory for the shortcut. Have you made sure the license is installed properly? On the same command line as you used for running the DLL, write

Code

echo %LSHOST%
echo %LSERVRC%
dir %LSERVRC%

and verify that the license file (for 2010.02) is correctly identified. Another way to test this, is if you can run ATK (the command line version), by executing "nlpython" on the command line (or use the corresponding entry in the Start menu).

[Twisty]

here is the output of my cmd report......pls check.

[Anders Blom]

What about nlpython/bin/nlpython, can you start that?

[Twisty]

here is the picture of nlpython...i think it runs...i dont know.

[Anders Blom]

Good and bad... It kind of runs, but not properly. However, it doesn't complain about not finding the license or that it's expired or anything.

I just noticed that you have Python 2.5 installed separately. That might cause problems, so please try to remove all references to F:\Python25 (it appears in at least 2 places!) and check if the environment variable PYTHON_HOME (with or without underscore) is set. If it is, remove it for now. These changes might again require a reboot (not my fault, it's Windows! )

[Twisty]

Dear Anders Blom,
it did not work and i think i need to install linux version...it may work. ok thanks for your advice and great efforts.
thanks again.

[Anders Blom]

I'm sure there's a quite simple reason - but finding that reason seems quite elusive...! If you have an option to switch to Linux, at least that's a work-around that will get you going for the moment.

[Twisty]

Dear Anders Blom,
Again i want to thank you...and now i am facing new problem with my RHEL 5.0 here is the error code...please see below,

[root@localhost bin]# vnl
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "./zipdir/NL/__init__.py", line 7, in <module>
  File "./zipdir/NL/NLLicense.py", line 25, in <module>
  File "./zipdir/NL/NLLicense.py", line 17, in swig_import_helper
ImportError: /opt/QuantumWise/atk-2010.02/vnl/lib/python2.6/_NLLicense.so: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied

[Anders Blom]

Should be solved here: http://quantumwise.com/forum/index.php?topic=16.0

[Twisty]

chcon -t texrel_shlib_t lib/python2.4/site-packages/qtext.so

in this command, we have python2.4 but in 2010.02 we have python2.6...i cant understand what to do

[Anders Blom]

It's not the path which is important but the file. So run

Code

chcon -t texrel_shlib_t FILE.so

for each FILE.so which generates an error message (in your case it's /opt/QuantumWise/atk-2010.02/vnl/lib/python2.6/_NLLicense.so as you can see from the error message you posted). You may need to do this for several files, but the error messages will tell you which ones.