Installing Forge¶

Go to the Forge download page to download Forge.

Installing on Windows¶

Forge is deployed using a ClickOnce installer. You can download and install the application without requiring administrator permissions (except .NET FW, see below). The application automatically detects and installs updates when you start the application. After installation of a new release, you will again receive automatic update notifications on application startup.

Forge is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.7.2 and WPF. The ClickOnce installer will download and install the .NET Framework 4.7.2 on demand, if not already available.Warning! Installing or updating the .NET Framework requires administrator permissions. If you have insufficient permissions, please contact your system administrator.

Installing on other operating systems¶

The .NET Framework and WPF, on which Forge is built, only support the Windows operating system. For users using other platforms, generally the best solution is to run Windows in a Virtual Machine, on your own machine or in the cloud, and install Forge on that. VirtualBox is an example of a great, free application to run virtual machines on your computer. Example instructions for installing Windows on MacOS with VirtualBox can be found here.

In some cases it is also possible to run Forge on Linux or MacOS using Wine. While we do not officially support this, the steps to get you started are below.

Forge on Linux with Wine¶

Download and install the latest version of Wine (4.0.2).

Install winetricks: :

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks
sudo mv winetricks /usr/local/bin

Install .NET 4.8. This step may take 5-10 minutes to complete. Answer yes to installing Gecko and no to Mono. :
```
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 winetricks -q dotnet48
```

Install core fonts: :

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 winetricks corefonts

Download and run the Forge setup package: :

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 wine setup.exe

The ClickOnce installer will erronously say that .NET 4.7.2 isn’t installed, when it is (4.8 is a superset). Hit ‘Install’ - it’ll think about installing it for a moment, then realise that it doesn’t need to and proceed to launch Forge.
Ready!

To run Forge again the next time, repeat the command: :
```
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 wine setup.exe
```

Forge on MacOS with Wine¶

Note that the Forge installer is currently only available in 32-bit, which is unsupported by MacOS Catalina. Please install Windows in a Virtual Machine instead.

Open the Terminal (you can do so via Launchpad)

Install Homebrew by copy/pasting the following into the Terminal: :

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Install Wine itself. This may take some time: :

brew install wine cabextract winetricks

Install .NET Framework. This step may take 5-10 minutes to complete. :
```
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 winetricks -q dotnet48
```

Install necessary fonts. :

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 winetricks corefonts

Improve font rendering. First, run the following: :

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 winecfg

Then in the Wine configuration window, go to the Graphics tab and set the Screen resolution to 150 dpi.
Download the Forge setup package from Simplifier.

Move setup.exe to your /Applications folder and rename to Forge-R4.exe (or Forge-STU3.exe, depending on your version). Then execute the downloaded file to install the application: :
```
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 wine /Applications/Forge-R4.exe
```
If wine complains that it cannot find the exe-file check if the Forge-R4.exe file is indeed in the /Applications folder.

The ClickOnce installer will erronously say that .NET 4.7.2 isn’t installed, while it is (4.8 is a superset). Hit ‘Install’ - it’ll think about installing it for a moment, then realise that it doesn’t need to and proceed to launch Forge.
Ready!

To run Forge again in the future, rerun the last command in the terminal: :
```
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.forge" WINEARCH=win32 wine /Applications/Forge-R4.exe
```
It might still think on each startup that .NET needs to be installed again. Just click through and it will realise it is already there and continue to open Forge.

Known issues¶

On some systems, having an active secondary display will cause application rendering issues (e.g. gray window). Please try to detach/disable secondary screen before starting the application.

Resolving installation Security Warning¶

In some cases users find that when installing or updating Forge the following security warning appears: {{render:forgeinstallsecuritywarning}}

If this is the case for you, please follow the steps listed in this blog post to change the values of TrustManager in the registry with Registry Editor. After that the installation should allow you to continue.

If you’re not allowed to change the registry of your computer, please ask your administrator for help.

Installing behind a proxy¶

Users installing and using Forge behind a Proxy can run into issues. Your organizations administrator might be able to resolve this issue by doing the following:

Whitelisting the following IP addresses:

 simplifier.net 		IP 40.68.205.178
 downloads.simplifier.net 	IP 40.114.243.70 

Allow applications using port 443 (https)
Your administrator should allow your Proxy to support Websocket.

Additionally some users found that they had to do one extra switch to the local users’ IE proxy settings. Although “Bypass proxy server for local addresses” was checked, entering the IP address and/or domain name (whichever the local users are using) into the proxy exceptions list fixed the problem.