Windows 95/98/NT/2K/XP Installation

The commercial version of WXP can be delivered as a collection of:

• Binaries - the actual executables compiled for different platforms
• Databases - extraneous files used by WXP for data processing and plotting
• Documentation - this documentation either in HTML or PDF form

This installation guide outlines how to prepare the local system, how to get WXP via the web, and finally how prepare WXP for general use. This last step includes setting up of resources, naming conventions and cron tasks.

Data Ingest

In order to obtain data for WXP to use, one must set up an ingestor. The ingest process can be run on a Windows 95 or NT platform but it is currently recommended that this platform be a Unix based platform as it is a more reliable platform with the automation available to monitor and maintain the feeds.

WXP comes with its own ingestors that run on Windows 95/NT but some sites use either the Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM) or a local ingest product such as one that comes with the data feeds.

Unisys NOAAPORT Users: You can get the NOAAPORT platform with the WXP ingestor/product manager.  This will come preconfigured for WXP.  Samba comes on the NOAAPORT ingestor computer and thus you can mount the drives by using Network Neighborhood.

Note: WXP is designed to work well with the WXP ingestor and LDM.   It may not work as well with others.

Prerequisites and Recommended Downloads:

• There are no prerequites for WXP.  WXP will run on Windows without additional software
• For access to data, you may need to acquire a NFS client if the data resides on a Unix platform.  There is the alternative of using Samba, a public domain file sharing package.  Download is from http://www.samba.org/samba/download.
  NOTE: If you are using the Unisys NOAAPORT system, Samba is provided.
• If you are using the Tcl/Tk based GUI for WXP 5, you will need to install Tcl/Tk.  You can download it from http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk.
• For scripting, it is recommended to use Perl.  This is a free download from http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl/.   This is the ActiveState Perl site and has precompiled binaries for Win95/98/NT.  
• Some GUIs use Perl/Tk which is a downloadable module from the ActiveState module repository.

Installation Steps:

1. Local System Preparation
   Prepare the system for use with WXP by creating the WXP directory structure required by WXP.
2. Downloading and Licensing WXP
   The next step is actually getting WXP. This includes the binaries, source, database files and documentation.
3. Setting Initial WXP Resources
   WXP needs to know the where data are located on the system.
4. Testing WXP
   Test WXP to make sure parameters are set properly.

Setting up ingestor

For those sites who will be using the WXP ingestor to retrieve data, these installation steps will guide you through the setup.  For those sites who will be using the Unisys NOAAPORT or LDM to ingest data on a server, you can bypass these steps.  Note: The LDM server is usually set up for automatic decode so this would require a Unix license for WXP's decoders.

1. Setting up the WXP Ingestor
   The ingestor stores data in a data tree with specific filenames.
2. Automating the WXP Decoders
   Many WXP programs require decoded data in order to run. WXP provides several parsers and decoders to accomodate the processing and visualization programs. In order to have these decoded data available upon demand, regular scheduled decoding must be enabled.

Once these steps are finished, WXP is ready to be run on the system. Proceded to either the Tutorials or Users Guide to see what you can do with the main body of WXP programs.

Back to WXP Main Menu

For further information about WXP, email technical-support@weather.unisys.com
Last updated by Dan Vietor on September 13, 2002