Code_Aster Windows is a port of Code_Aster FEA solver originally developed by EDF for Linux and distributed under Gnu GPL3 license. This license allows to adapt the open-source code in order to produce and distribute Windows versions here.

No, the free version available for download has been build with a minimum of prerequisites and covers around 90% of the functionalities. Remaining functions, useful for advanced users only (more interesting one is MPI parallelism for performance) are available on demand in a premium offer and supports everything on Windows.

We worked a lot the past years to fix minor issues in order to deliver a solver as consistent as possible in its stable version (currently 14.4). A small difference in performance can be observed compared to a native Linux, but the Windows version is not intentionally restricted. Furthermore, one can request anytime an update to the premium version, using MPI paradigm on Windows to benefit from modern CPUs parallelism.

Salome-Meca Windows aims to provide an alternative to the official Salome-Meca binary package distributed by EDF, only available on Linux.

Salome-Meca Windows is a binary package that includes Code_Aster Windows product described above and the AsterStudy module, the new Code_Aster graphical interface officially released in September 2017.

EDF adds a lot of useful business products and modules into Salome-Meca that are not present in the original Salome platform. Unfortunately, the build process used by EDF is very different compared to the original one and will be extremely hard to port on Windows. Moreover, not all Salome-Meca modules are open-sources and therefore impossible to rebuild on Windows. Also, among all these products and modules added by EDF, mostly Code_Aster and today AsterStudy, generate high added value and interest. Then, Salome-Meca is simply the same Windows binary package already provided by Open Cascade and distributed under Gnu LGPL2.1, enriched with Code_Aster and AsterStudy. The package is adapted accordingly and contains also some modifications in libraries and configuration files.

For v2019 and below: Code_Aster for Windows zip archive simply needs to be unzipped somewhere and it’s ready.
For v2021 and above: there is an msi installer.

You can follow the Code_Aster Windows installation tutorial for more information.

Salome-Meca for Windows zip archive simply needs to be unzipped somewhere and it’s ready. The application is portable.
For v2021 and above: Salome-Meca does not contain solvers. You need to also install corresponding Code_Aster msi package.

You can follow the Salome Windows installation tutorial as well to get more details on how to install  Salome_Meca Windows. More advanced tips can be found in the README.txt file inside the archive.

For v2021 and above: yes, you need to install corresponding Code_Aster msi package.
For v2019 and below: no, Salome-Meca Windows package already includes Code_Aster package. You can run Code_Aster using cmd prompt without opening Salome GUI. as_run is located at PRODUCTS\code_aster\bin\

It is much lighter to download Code_Aster Windows standalone package for people interested by the solver only. Some people may be interested by the solver only because they want to use an alternative prepost tool, or simply because they need to integrate Code_Aster Windows in a toolchain that does not involve a graphical interface. There are a lot of combination and possibilities.

1. Gmsh, an open source prepost distributed under Gnu GPL2 license. Gmsh is both able to create a med mesh file for Code_Aster input and to visualize a med result file produced by Code_Aster. They provide a binary package for Windows.
2. Paraview, an open source visualization software distributed under BSD license. The version for Windows available in our download page includes med support. The Paraview with Med tutorial explains how to use it as an alternative to Paravis Salome module.
3. Notepad++, an open source text editor for Windows, distributed under GPL license. Notepad++ can be used for editing Code_Aster inputs and visualize output text files. Notepad++ can also be used as an alternative to notepad in AsterStudy external editor.
4. Salome platform, the package originaly used to provide Salome-Meca for Windows.
5. Certain commercial softwares that are able to generate Nastran input files. Conversion to Code_Aster input files can be automated using Vega convertor available in our download page.

If an error like this appears the first time you try to run Code_Aster or Salome-Meca :

• “the application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.”
• “the program can’t start because VCOMP100.DLL is missing from your computer”,
• “the program can’t start because VCOMP140.DLL is missing from your computer”,

you probably need to install MSVC++ redistributable packages :

• For Code_Aster and Salome_Meca 2019+, MSVC++ 2015 Redistributable Package (x64)
• For Code_Aster and Salome_Meca 2018-, MSVC++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x64)
• For Salome_Meca 2018-, MSVC++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64)

Salome_Meca needs both of these runtime package to be able to run Code_Aster from AsterStudy module.

It is not mandatory to allow for this, when your system pops up some messages:

• “Windows firewall has blocked some features of this program”.

but some users have reported some strange behaviors while in use, and solved these issues by allowing all services to access network. Please note that Salome-Meca services only need local access to your machine.

Admin access is only useful if one of the required MSVC++ redistributable packages needs to be installed.

Salome is not designed to function with some special characters in the path. You should try to avoid for example symbols like ^ $ [ * + ? | ) é ä in your path. Try also to avoid using space ” ” by replacing them by underscores “_”. Space or special characters in your path is hazardous and can lead to different kind of errors (see below).

Same issues can happen if computername contains special characters.

See above section spaces or special characters in the path & spaces or special characters in computername.

See above section spaces or special characters in the path & spaces or special characters in computername.

See above section spaces or special characters in the path & spaces or special characters in computername.

This happens on Windows 10 with a python installation “for everyone”. A side effect appears for Salome executables linked to python27.dll. A workaround is to put the right python27.dll beside the executables. Coping “PRODUCTS\python-2.7.10\python27.dll” into “MODULES\exe” should fix this issue.

To uninstall, simply remove the unzipped directory containing Code_Aster or Salome-Meca from your computer.

Salome-Meca uses CORBA and may try to open some ports at launch. Even if everything remains local, your antivirus may consider some services as threat, stop them or move them in quarantine. Some users reported difficulties with Avast but similar issues may appear with other brands. Instead of completely disable your protection, you can simply add a whitelist rule for salome service executables.

If you did not find solutions and still have the Code_Aster Windows installation tutorial unsuccessful, you may consider to write either in the contact form or directly in the comment post. Please send us the message or log file and describe your problem as best as possible.

If you did not find solutions and still have the Salome Windows installation tutorial unsuccessful, you may first try to reproduce the issue with the official Salome for Windows and look for a solution in the Salome forum.

If the official Salome for Windows works properly in your system but Salome-Meca still have problems. You can follow the instructions below:

• locate the file “set_env.bat” in the “WORK” folder,
• right click on it and choose “modify” to open it,
• add a line “set DEBUG=1” at the end of this file,
• save and close,
• restart salome.

More debug information should appear at the cmd prompt. You may consider to share these debug information with us, either in the contact form, or directly in the comment post.

It may be an issue with your Salome configuration. You can remove the “.config” folder in your home directory to reset your configuration. To do so, close Salome-Meca, open a cmd prompt and type:

rd %userprofile%\.config /s /q

and run Salome-Meca again.

If this message appear when your data seems to be correct, you can answer “yes” to the question “Do you want to save the change anyway“. Some values will appear in red in the “Data Setting” tree panel, showing the potential incorrect syntax. In any case Code_Aster will double check the command file during it’s run. It is very likely that in your case Code_Aster will end well while AsterStudy showed this incorrect syntax.

ERROR: Copy failed: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 
u'C:/...RunCase_1\Result-Stage_1\result.rmed'
1 result file(s) has(have) not been copied to their destination.
Following stages will probably fail.
Stage "RunCase_1:Stage_1" calculation failed. Interruption

It is very likely that there was a problem during the execution of Code_Aster and the result file was simply not created by the solver. You may look at the “message” file to get more information about the potential error.

This happen when Code_Aster handle an error without abnormal crash from the “OS point of view”, but an internal error was catch from the “Solver point of view”. Unfortunately it is complicated to get an info of this internal error from the return code on Windows. With no handled errors, AsterStudy carries on the job but fails to retrieve non-existent results.

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\asterstudy_workdir_username\username-computername.time-tmp.num\logs\*
File specified was not found

It is very likely related to write access permission. If you have Salome-Meca installed in root folder like C:\, try to reinstall in your home directory i.e below C:\Users\username\

There are also AsterStudy known issues and a AsterStudy FAQ from the official AsterStudy project.

Yes, depending to your OS configuration, default language may not be recognized by Code_Aster Windows. Some information may appear in French which is problematic for non-French speakers. A workaround to this is to change the Code_Aster cata command file “debut.py“:

• For Code_Aster : install\14.4\lib\aster\code_aster\Cata\Commands\debut.py
• For Salome_Meca : PRODUCTS\code_aster\14.4\lib\aster\code_aster\Cata\Commands\debut.py

Edit this file and locate the line :

LANG = SIMP(statut='f', typ='TXM',

and add “defaut=’EN’,” at the end of this line :

LANG = SIMP(statut='f', typ='TXM', defaut='EN',

Message file should now be in English.

The message file uses default OEM Windows encoding cp1252. A workaround to solve display issues is to also force cp1252 in the console. This can be changed in file “as_run.bat“:

• For Code_Aster : install\bin\as_run.bat
• For Salome_Meca : PRODUCTS\code_aster\bin\as_run.bat

Edit this file and add the following line at the beginning:

chcp 1252

as_run mytest.export
...
_FILE_NOT_FOUND file not found : config.txt
...
as_run 1.13.10

------------------------------------------------------------
--- DIAGNOSTIC JOB : _FILE_NOT_FOUND
------------------------------------------------------------

EXIT_CODE=4

Please first double check your export file, this post explains how to create a basic export file. If you still notice any strange behavior, it may be an issue with new-lines. There are different kind of new line. For example LF that correspond to “n” or CR+LF that correspond to “rn”. Make sure to not mix up different kind of new-lines unless the export file parser may drop some important lines in your file.

Salome_Meca launcher, used to execute a Code_Aster run, does not cleanup things correctly and leaves some scratch files in your temporary %temp% directory, even if Code_Aster ends successfully. To cleanup, open a cmd prompt and type:

rd %temp% /s /q
md %temp%

This issue is corrected in Salome-Meca 2019.

It is a known issue. The log and message files are only available at the end of the run and it is not possible to interactively follow the output. A workaround is to open the “fort.6” file located in the temporary Code_Aster run folder. This issue is corrected in Salome-Meca 2018.

It is a known issue. HDF file is set to read-only on save. For HDF study files, deleting file or removing read-only mode should solve the issue. The issue can also append with temporary MED files created at study save. Removing loaded MED file from the study in SMESH module should solve this issue. This problem has been solved with a FIX in the hdf5 library for 2019 version. Read Errors on save paragraph for more details.

the openblas binary may fail to detect CPU type, especially with recent XEON. A workaround is to force openblas coretype with OPENBLAS_CORETYPE environment variable

set OPENBLAS_CORETYPE=HASWELL

We have published Code_Aster Windows tutorials and Salome-Meca Windows tutorials to better accompany new users. You may also subscribe to follow us, and receive an alert for each interesting news.

Code_Aster official website provides some Salome-Meca training presentations and Code_Aster user documentation (beware : machine translated from French language). You can also take a look at FEA for All very interesting blog. Finally, there are also interesting books dealing with Code_Aster:

• “Beginnings with Code_Aster” written by Jean-Pierre Aubry, can be downloaded for free,
• “FEA using Open Source Software” from Dharmit A. Thakore, with an availaible preview before buying,
• “Intermediate FEA using Open Source Software“, a more advanced book from the latest.
• Code_Aster & SALOME-MECA関連書籍A series of books for the japanese-speaking community

Code_Aster official forum is a valuable source of help, but a lot of questions remains unanswered. We offer larger Code_Aster and Salome-Meca support services. You may also consider to contact us for a simple question.

We can help you to find an alternative or a workaround. Please visit our products page for more information about the Code_Aster Windows development offer.

Yes, we provide an MPI version. Please visit our products page for more information about the Code_Aster Windows premium offer.

• Source code changes to produce Code_Aster Windows binaries have been partly integrated in official repository. Last modifications (work in progress) are available in dedicated code-aster-windows fork, branch windows-compat.
• Salome source code modifications have been integrated in official repositories ; AsterStudy source code modifications are available in official repository windows-compat, branch windows-compat