Installing Mathematica
Mathematica is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. For a complete list of platform availability, visit www.wolfram.com/mathematica/system-requirements.html. Any supported machine can act as a client for running Mathematica, provided the following two conditions are met:
- The client has access to the Mathematica files, either locally or from a file server on the network.
- The license server running MathLM is available on the TCP/IP network.
- Quit any previous installations of Wolfram products that are running on your machine.
- On the product page in your User Portal, click the Windows link in the “Mathematica + Documentation” row and “Standard Download” column. This downloads the Wolfram Download Manager for Windows that combines the Mathematica core product and documentation installers.
- Start the Wolfram Download Manager executable and follow its instructions.
- Quit any previous installations of Mathematica that are running on your machine.
- On the Products & Services tab in your Wolfram Account, select Wolfram Mathematica.
- Under Access ► Desktop, click Download. This downloads the Wolfram Download Manager that combines the Mathematica core product and documentation installers.
- Start the Wolfram Download Manager executable and follow its instructions.
- Click Launch to install Mathematica documentation.
- Wait for the installation to complete.
- Click Next to begin the installation process.
- Click Next to install Mathematica to the default directory.
- Click Next to include wolframscript with your installation. If you prefer not to install wolframscript, select “Choose components to install” from the drop-down menu and uncheck the box next to wolframscript; click Next to continue.
- The installer adds Mathematica shortcuts to the Windows Start Menu in the Wolfram Mathematica folder. To make the shortcuts appear in a different folder, click Browse and select a directory. If you prefer not to make a shortcut in the Start Menu, check the box next to “Don’t create a Start Menu folder”. Click Next to continue the installation.
- The Remove Other Applications window only appears if there are older versions installed on the computer. Select any old versions of Mathematica that you want to uninstall, then click Next.
- The configuration of the Mathematica installation is finished. Click Install.
Wait for the installation process to complete.
- To launch Mathematica, click Finish.
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista
- Windows XP (Service Pack 3 or later)
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows HPC Server 2008
- Windows Server 2008
- Mac OS X 10.9 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.8 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.7 Intel
- Mac OS X 10.6 Intel
- Ubuntu 7-12
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, 6
- CentOS 5, 6
- Debian 5, 6
- openSUSE 11, 12
- Fedora 9-17
A license server can also function as its own client. However, this is not recommended. If the machine has to be rebooted for any reason, the serving of licenses to all other clients on the network may be disrupted.
If you wish to license Mathematica from a MathLM license server, MathLM should already be installed and running on a license server on the network (see «Installing MathLM» for details). To complete the Mathematica installation, you will need to know the name or IP address of the license server running MathLM.
To install Mathematica, you must be logged in with administrative privileges, or be able to elevate to administrative privileges. You also must activate Mathematica using the Wolfram User Portal in order to run it (see «Activating Mathematica» for details).
Installing Mathematica from a File Server
One convenient way to install Mathematica on a client is to run the installer remotely from a file server. This is an efficient way of making Mathematica available to a large number of users without having to supply a CD/DVD to each one. You can install Mathematica from a file server on a client running any supported platform. It is not necessary that the client platform be the same as the file server platform.
To install Mathematica from a file server, you first must make the installer and Mathematica files available to the clients. You can do this by copying the contents of the CD/DVD to the file server and exporting the directory, or by exporting the CD/DVD mount point on the file server. Then, mount the directory with the Mathematica distribution on the client and change to this directory, and run the installer as usual.
Installing Mathematica from a file server requires first copying the installer executable and all files in the Mathematica distribution from the DVD onto the file server.
Starting the Mathematica Installer
The Windows Installer
Open the Windows directory from the DVD. Double-click the file Setup.exe to launch the installer and follow the prompts. The main Windows installer includes a custom setup option which allows you to control whether to install secondary components, including support for the Mathematica web browser plugin and components for indexing notebooks on the file system.
The Macintosh Installer
Mathematica may be installed by dragging the Mathematica application bundle into the Applications folder, as illustrated by the startup window when you insert the DVD. The DVD also includes an installer to install secondary components, including support for the Mathematica web browser plugin and for Spotlight and Quick Look support of Mathematica-created documents.
The Linux Installer
To install Mathematica under Linux,
1. Mount the CD or DVD. For information on mounting a CD/DVD, see «Mounting a CD or DVD on Linux».
Note: This step may not be required on most Linux distributions, as most operating systems automatically handle mounting.
2. Change directory to / cdrom /Unix/Installer . Note that the exact location of the CD/DVD mount point might be different for your platform.
cd / cdrom /Unix/Installer
3. Run the installer. Default installation under /usr/local requires root privileges.
sudo bash M-UNIX-LM.sh
4. Follow the installer prompts.
Installing Mathematica from a Script
If you are installing Mathematica on multiple machines, it can be time consuming to respond to all of the installer prompts on each individual machine. By supplying command-line options to the installer, you can customize various features of the installation process or automate it entirely.
How do I set up Mathematica on Windows?
Read this article in: Deutsch, Español, Français, 日本語, 한국어, Português, Русский, 中文 If your organization has enabled access to Wolfram products through single sign-on (SSO), see How do I activate a Wolfram product using single sign-on (SSO)? To set up Mathematica on your Windows machine, you first need to download Mathematica. Installers for Mathematica Student Edition are in your Wolfram Account; all other Mathematica installers are in the Wolfram User Portal. We recommend using the Wolfram Download Manager (“Standard Download”) for both the Mathematica installer and the documentation installer. Alternative download managers and installers are available in the User Portal or in your Wolfram Account. Without download managers, installations need to be started manually.
Downloading the Mathematica + Documentation Installers from the User Portal
Next, install the documentation.
Downloading the Mathematica + Documentation Installers from Your Wolfram Account
Installing the Documentation
The download manager confirms when the process is complete.
Installing Mathematica
The Mathematica setup dialog opens next. 
What are Mathematica 9 system requirements?
Mathematica 9 runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems where available.
Windows
Mac
Mac users on Intel systems with Mac OS X 10.6 or later require Java SE 6 to run the latest version of Mathematica. Mathematica 9 will run on 64-bit Intel Macs only.
Linux
Mathematica 9 has been fully tested on the Linux distributions listed above. On new Linux distributions, additional compatibility libraries may need to be installed. It is likely that Mathematica will run successfully on other distributions based on the Linux kernel 2.6 or later.
Mathematica supports an X Window System front end, and since Version 7 has used the Qt application framework for its user interface—the same used by the major Linux desktop environment KDE. Regular tests are run on both enterprise and popular open-source Linux distributions.
Additional Notes:
To use the new C compilation feature in Mathematica 9, a C compiler is required to be present.
Install trial version of Mathematica 9 next to genuine Mathematica 8
This morning I installed the trial version of Mathematica 9. After I discovered that Export[] is disabled in trial versions, I wanted to use my genuine Mathematica 8 again, but I discovered that the installer of MMA 9 apparently made MMA 8 a trial version too. When I try to re-register mma 8 it returns «You have already registered this product». I’m running the student version of Mathematica 8.0.4.0 on Ubuntu 12.10 (64-bit). Question: How can I make Mathematica 8 fully functional again?
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asked Nov 29, 2012 at 14:41
Aart Goossens Aart Goossens
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$\begingroup$ If you have a backup look for the mathpass file. reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/tutorial/… $\endgroup$
Nov 29, 2012 at 14:50
$\begingroup$ Do you have a student version? $\endgroup$
Nov 29, 2012 at 14:50
$\begingroup$ yes, student version $\endgroup$
Nov 29, 2012 at 14:53
$\begingroup$ i don’t have a backup file (at least couldn’t find it). In my mathpass files are two licenses: the top one seems to be the trial license, the bottom one my student license $\endgroup$
Nov 29, 2012 at 15:07
1 Answer 1
$\begingroup$
This happened to me too and apparently, is a problem with the student version. Arnoud helped me figure out a work around for this. In your $UserBaseDirectory/Licensing , you should find a mathpass file that looks something like this:
(*userregistered*) machineName1 ID ActivationKey1 Expiration1 UserName machineName2 ID ActivationKey2 Expiration2 UserName The first line is (most likely) your activation for the trial, and Mathematica 8 for students apparently tries to use this activation key and converts it to a trial version.
In my case (OS X), Mathematica 8 kept crashing, and Arnoud suspects it’s because it tries to bring up the trial window at startup, which does not exist. You seem to not have that issue, but the workaround (for now) is to comment out the activation line (with a % ) for Mathematica 9 trial version when you’re not using it and then launch Mathematica 8.
Oh, and the problem seems to be primarily with the front-end, as I can launch a Mathematica 8 kernel from the command line simultaneously with Mathematica 9. So if you only need it for computations, that’s another option.