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3. Installing RAINS

This chapter contains informations about system requirements, how to install the RAINS modules, some notes about the installation of the Help System and hints for the installation of help tools.
At the end of this chapter you find information about how to configure the RAINS setup.

The 7.2 release of RAINS contains the following modules:

In addition there comes along

System Requirements

You need for RAINS 7.2 release

NOTE:

The space occupied by RAINS after it's full installation may be less then 35MB, but during the use of it, there are many new files generated, thus the totally required disk space is really 35MB.

Problems with cluster size: If your hard disk has an old (MS-DOS) file system with a 16 Bit file allocation table (FAT), the size of a full RAINS installation may be even higher. Please be aware of this problem. In case you have such an FAT we recomand to use a compressed file system/partition at least for the data files. This will solve the problem.

How to install the RAINS Modules

To install RAINS Europe 7.2 do the following steps:

  1. make sure that you have enough disk space on your hard disk
  2. insert disk no. 1 into your floppy drive
  3. double click on the "My Computer" icon on your desk top
  4. double click on "3 1/2 Floppy"
  5. run the setup program on the disk by a double click on it's icon (setup.exe).

This will start the setup program.
The setup program will interactively setup the file paths for the RAINS programs and data and it will automatically extract all files and put them to the desired places.
Simply follow the instructions of the setup program.

Technical Notes about the Help System

The RAINS Help System is HTML based. This provides you with many advances, according to other help systems (e.g. hyperlinks). Thus, for viewing the HTML pages at least any web browser, or another HTML viewer is required.

The HTML Format:

Please note, that we made no use of frames and took care that the output of viewers which not support HTML 3 is at least reasonable. Of course a HTML 3 viewer is better.

Which Browser?

You can use any web browser you want. But, for using all features provided by the RAINS Help System, you have to install one of the following browsers on your computer:

Viewing the help pages with a browser that not supports HTML 3 produces a reasonable output if at least tables are supported. The RAINS help functions can access only one of the browsers named above.
Currentlyt Netscape and Internet Explorer are freely available for non-commercial use for single users. But, read allways the licence agreements!
LIKSE comes together with RAINS Europe 7.2.

Look at Using this Manual for an introduction into the help system.

Installation of Help Tools

Together with RAINS 7.2 you get two help tools for the use of the RAINS Help System:

NOTE:

Both applications work ONLY with Windows 95.

The installation of these tools is optional. LIKSE has NavSearch "built in", thus, if you install LIKSE you need not to install NavSearch. To perform searching with LIKSE simply click on the "Search Screen" button of LIKSE.
Especially for new users we recommend to install LIKSE.

Configuring RAINS

The default settings of RAINS are stored in a definition file called RAINS.INI. This settings can be viewed, saved and modified for use in future runs of RAINS model.

When RAINS is installed this file is automatically generated and usually it's not necessary to change it at all. Experienced computer users may read this chapter and change the RAINS.INI file if desired.

The settings, from the RAINS.INI file, are automatically recalled by RAINS as soon as the program has been loaded. In case you want RAINS to use your own definition file, then provide the required file name on command line while loading a RAINS module or give another file the name RAINS.INI (after makeing a copy of the old file!).
Below are the descriptions for these settings:

Current (Program) path - directory for the executable files (*.exe) and related files
default :- PROGRAM_PATH = c:\rains7_2\bin

Root path - RAINS database files root directory
default :- ROOT_PATH = c:\rains7_2\europe

User path - RAINS user area (for storing user made scenarios)
default :- USER_PATH = c:\rains7_2\europe\user

Strategy path - Control strategy directory
default :- CONTROL_STRATEGY_PATH = c:\rains7_2\europe\css

Documentation path - RAINS documentation directory
default:- DOC_PATH=c:\rains7_2\doc

Reduction scenario - (Default) reduction scenario which is loaded in the beginning (name of it)
default :- REDUCTION_SCENARIO = no_contr

Map name - Name of map for RAINS-DEP
default:- MAP_NAME=test

Print file - default name for output file (created with Print File window)
default:- PRINT_FILE=out_file.prt

(NOTE: Not all of these settings are currently supported, thus don't mind if you can't find all of the definitions named above in your RAINS.INI file.)

The above settings can be changed by the user directly into the RAINS.INI file (using any ASCII word-processor), taking precautions that the directory paths should exist, control strategy and reduction scenario files should exist, and energy consumption pathway number should match the number stored in energy pathway database.

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