This version of TopSpin can be accessed as a virtualised application on any University-managed Windows machine on-campus using AppsAnywhere. It can also be installed locally on your own PC on either Windows, MacOS or Linux, but this particular version is no longer recommended.
Note that due to the need for TopSpin to contact the license server every time you process data, you will need a functioning VPN when off-campus. This can be quite tedious if you don't have a fast connection, so if you do a lot of processing data off-campus you may want to consider installing a standalone version instead.
How to install TopSpin 3.5 locally (no longer recommended)
The free academic license for TopSpin 3.5 is no longer valid, so this is not the best way to install TopSpin anymore - 3.6 or 4 is your best option. However, if you do need this particular version for whatever reason you can still do so provided you install our site license and work on-campus or have a functioning VPN. Due to the need for TopSpin to contact the license server every time you reprocess data, the off-campus performance is quite poor unless you have a fast connection.
Note that as of April 2019 the current license file has changed slightly so that it works properly off-campus - try updating the license.dat on your computer if it has mysteriously stopped working.
Before doing anything else, you need to have "proper" admin rights requested via ISS. While local admin rights are enough for installation, they are not enough for the initial configuration steps.
The files for installing it are stored in: \\luna.lancs.ac.uk\FST\CH\NMR\Software\TopSpin, but if you have any problems contact Dr Geoffrey Akien.
The below instructions refer to TopSpin versions 3.5 patch level 7 (3.5pl7).
- Ensure you have admin rights.
- Obtain the correct installation files for your needs - currently the "TS3.5pl7 (free)" folder.
- Open the correct installer for your OS: Windows - "install.cmd"; MacOS - "TopSpin-3.5pl7.dmg"; Linux - "install".
- Click "Yes" to all the dialogues, and close the "rellet.pdf" file when it is opened to allow the installation to continue. Accept the default location and select "customise". We want: TopSpin, NMR-Sim, NMR-Data (optional), FlexLM, and Dynamics Center (optional, but highly recommended if you ever intend to do DOSY experiments).
- Accept the default NMR Super User (should be the username you are currently logged in with). You can leave the password field empty for convenience on your own computer.
- Accept the default locations for the example data and FlexLM, and say yes to configure the firewall automatically - FlexLM won't work properly otherwise! It takes approximately 10-15 minutes to install completely.
- Copy the license.dat file into the right place: Windows - "C:\flexlm\Bruker\licenses"; Linux: "\opt\flexlm\Bruker\licenses". For MacOS use Finder and open "TopSpin Utilities", "Applications", and run "Install License", telling it the location of the license file.
- The first time you open TopSpin it will prompt you to run "expinstall". Accept the defaults - it will take 1-5 minutes to set this up. If you only have local admin rights you'll get "Access error 5" - go and request them from ISS before trying this step again.
MacOS issues
Note that 3.5pl6 has issues with Sierra (MacOS 10.12), but these can be fixed with the files provided by Bruker. This does not appear to have been resolved in 3.5pl7.
Alternatively, the same files are located in the "TS3.5pl6 - MacOS patches" sub-folder.
Linux installations
Note that TopSpin 3 installations are only officially supported on CentOS, but it is possible to install it on Ubuntu with some work. The difficulty arises from TopSpin using 32-bit libraries for some applications, and the handling of these in different 64-bit distributions can be rather varied - YMMV!
Licenses
We have FlexLM licenses for 20 simultaneous users of TopSpin 3 and CMC-assist, and two licenses for fully-featured NUS processing. Those two NUS licenses are checked in and out as you process your data, so if you can't process your NUS data immediately, try again in a minute or so's time. To maintain fully-featured NUS processing as an option for AppsAnywhere installations, we have not migrated our FlexLM licenses over to Codemeter.
The 21st person to launch TopSpin will get an error message saying "cannot find valid license" so will be unable to use the software.