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Installing Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite on Windows 7

By Gastón C. Hillar (14 posts) on October 7, 2009 at 8:54 am

Many Windows developers stayed in Windows XP instead of upgrading their developer workstations to Windows Vista. Windows Vista introduced some compatibility problems when installing certain applications. Now, Windows 7 is round the corner and many developer workstations are going to move to this new Windows version. Windows 7 has many improvements over Vista. Nonetheless, it is an improved Windows Vista. Therefore, you can face some incompatibilities whilst trying to install the necessary software for a professional development environment.

I’m working with Windows 7 RTM and I wanted to install Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite. Its latest version is a Windows Installer Package (.MSI), Advisor_Lite_update1_win.msi. The package has to be installed with Administrator rights. Therefore, if you just double click on the file, the installation is not going to work as expected.

As Windows 7 hasn’t been released yet, Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite doesn’t offer official support for this operating system. However, I’m already working with Windows 7 and I wanted to optimize some code for multicore microprocessors taking advantage of the new performance improvements offered by the new Windows 7 kernel.

There is a very simple way to successfully install Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite on Windows 7. Besides, the same steps work with Windows Vista:

1. Run a Command Prompt as Administrator: Start Menu, All Programs, Accesories. Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator” from the context menu that appears, as shown in the following picture.

2. A command line (terminal) Window will appear displaying the title “Administrator: Command Prompt”. Go to the folder where you downloaded the Advisor_Lite_update1_win.msi file. Remember that you have to use the CD command. For example, if the file is in C:\downloads, you just have to type:

CD C:\downloads

Important note: As a developer, you should know the CD command. However, I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for those who don’t use command line commands in Windows.

3. Run msiexec with the /i option and the Windows Installer Package (.MSI) as a parameter:

msiexec /i Advisor_Lite_update1_win.msi

The installation will start because you’re running the Advisor_Lite_update1_win.msi package as an Administrator. You’ll be able to enjoy Intel® Parallel Advisor Lite. Follow the advice and tackle the multicore revolution!

Categories: Parallel Programming, Software Tools
Tags: Intel Parallel Advisor, Parallel Programming & Multi-Core, What If

For more complete information about compiler optimizations, see our Optimization Notice.

Comments (2)

October 9, 2009 10:34 AM PDT RAVI (Intel) Total Points: 3,175 Brown Belt

Fine blog, Gaston. Loved it! The approach works for Vista as well, by the way. Perhaps, you can edit the title of the article to include Visa as well (in addition to Windows). Thank you!

October 19, 2009 11:46 PM PDT Gastón C. Hillar Total Points: 4,424 Black Belt

Hi Ravi, Thanks for your kind words! You're right. When I wrote the blog I hadn't realized the approach worked with Vista as well. I really don't know how to edit a title once the blog is online. However, as readers are going to read your comment, they'll realize it also works with Vista. Cheers, Gaston

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