Athena SMI
System Requirements

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

The ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings Version 4 is a C# (C-Sharp) software application and has been tested on a PC system with the following minimum configuration:

  • Intel® Pentium® 4, Pentium M, or Intel Centrino® 1.3GHz (or compatible) processor.
  • Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Vista™, or Windows 7.
  • 512 MB of RAM (2 GB or more is recommended depending on the operating system requirements).
    Note: Approximately 90 MB of memory is required to load the application. When loading large projects that have many assemblies, an additional 100 MB of memory (or more) may be required. Additional memory is required for each project active in the Impact Estimator at the same time.
  • 2 GB of Virtual Memory.
  • 130 MB of available hard-disk space is required for installing the application.
  • Colour monitor with 16-bit color video card.
  • CD-ROM drive if installing from CD.
  • You must install the ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings 4 with an account that has Administrative privileges (not a Limited User Account if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7). You may require assistance from your Network Administrator to install the software.

It is assumed that you are familiar with the basic operation of Microsoft® Windows XP/Vista™/7, such as opening files, saving files, and clicking on menu items. If not, please refer to your Windows XP/Vista™/7 User’s Guide.

SOFTWARE REGISTRATION

When the Impact Estimator software is installed on a computer, you are prompted to register the software.  If registration is skipped, you can register the software by launching the Impact Estimator then clicking on the "Help" menu and the “Register Now” menu option.  With the "Registration" form open, perform the following steps:

  1. Accept the License Agreement.
  2. Enter your Product Key using the format "xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx". Be sure to enter the dashes.
  3. Click the "Activate" button.

During the initial registration process, the Impact Estimator attempts to communicate with the Morrison Hershfield registration server using port 271.

To help guard against software piracy, each time the software is launched it tries to connect to the registration server to verify that your copy is legitimate.  After registering your copy of the software, you may continue to use the software 30 times without successfully verifying the legitimacy of your copy of the software (i.e., if your computer is not connected to the internet for 30 consecutive times that you run the software).  If this grace period has elapsed without the legitimacy of your copy of the software being verified, you will be greeted by a warning message and you will be placed in TRIAL MODE.

There has been some concern voiced about creating a security hole during the Impact Estimator software registration process.  Morrison Hershfield operates its Impact Estimator software registration application on its web server on a particular port.  The web server receives registration information on this port from your computer and sends a response back to your computer.

In particular, your router needs to be setup to permit the Impact Estimator to send registration information to the Morrison Hershfield registration server on port 271.  When setup properly, no security holes are created since the port does not need to be “opened” up for all incoming and outgoing communication.


License Activation

When you purchase the Impact Estimator, you receive a single product key that has one or more licenses associated with it, depending on how many single user versions you purchase. The number of licenses associated with a product key governs the number of computers that the Impact Estimator software can be activated on: each license can be activated on one computer.

(You can install the Impact Estimator software on any number of computers and run it in TRIAL MODE for a maximum of 3 times, but the number of computers that the software can be activated on is dependent on the number of licenses associated with your product key.)

When you activate a license on a computer, your computer name and the product key are sent to the Morrison Hershfield registration server and this information is entered into a database. This license is now permanently associated with this computer. If in the future you wish to use the Impact Estimator on a different computer, you will have to contact Morrison Hershfield by telephone 613-739-3262 or email sbarr@morrisonhershfield.com and request that your license be reassigned.

Let’s consider the following example.

Example – You purchase a product key that has a single license associated with it.

You can install the Impact Estimator software on any number of computers but can activate it on only one computer. After you have activated your license, you will be able to run the Impact Estimator in full unrestricted mode.

Some time after activating your license on a computer named Computer-A, your IT department decides that you are due for a hardware upgrade and replaces your computer, or you purchase a new laptop. The new computer is named Computer-B.

Now, you want to install the Impact Estimator onto Computer-B, activate your license, and continue using the software as usual. Follow the steps detailed below.

  1. Contact Morrison Hershfield and request that the computer associated with your license, Computer-A, be deactivated so that you can activate the license on Computer-B. You will need to provide your product key and the name of the computer* on which you want to deactivate the software, e.g., Computer-A. Once your license has been deactivated on Computer-A, you will be able to activate it on Computer-B.
  2. Uninstall the Impact Estimator software from Computer-A if you wish. If you do not choose to uninstall the Impact Estimator from Computer-A, it will run in TRIAL MODE for a maximum of 3 times on Computer-A.

If you attempt to activate an already activated license on a second computer, you will receive an error message each time.


Software Registration on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 Computer

When the software registration and license activation is successfully completed, the computer registry is updated with an encrypted key. If User Access Control is enabled on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer, the Impact Estimator must be "Run as Administrator" when the software is registered and the license is activated to ensure that the computer registry is updated. Failure to do so will result in the software thinking that it is still in TRIAL MODE. Follow these steps to run the Impact Estimator as Administrator:

  1. Launch Windows Explorer.
  2. Navigate to the folder where the software was installed. By default, the software is installed in the "C:\Program Files\Athena Impact Estimator 4.0" folder.
  3. Right click Athena.exe.
    1. Select "Run as Administrator".
  4. Register the Impact Estimator as detailed above.

*Here’s how to find your computer name:

Windows 7: Control Panel –> System and Maintenance –> System
Windows Vista: Control Panel –> System and Maintenance –> System
Windows XP : Control Panel –> System

Technical Notes:

In TCP/IP and UDP networks, a port is an endpoint to a logical connection and the way a client program specifies a specific server program on a computer in a network.  Some ports have numbers that are preassigned to them by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and these are known as well-known ports (specified in RFC 1700).  Port numbers range from 0 to 65536, but only ports numbers 0 to 1024 are reserved for privileged services and designated as well-known ports.  A number from 0 through 1023 used to identify a network service on an IP network (the Internet).

Port 271 was selected for registering the Impact Estimator because it is an unassigned “well known” port, which means that it does not presently have any other purpose associated to it.  For most common networking scenarios, stateful packet inspection occurs for the well-known ports.

For firewalls and routers with Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI), every time a packet is sent out of the computer, the firewall keeps track of it.  When a packet comes back to the firewall, the firewall can tell whether or not the in-bound packet is a reply to the packet that was sent out only allowing incoming traffic that is a response to that outbound packet.  This is not the same as having the outbound port wide open.  In this way, the firewall can handle most network traffic safely without a complex configuration of firewall rules.

For medium and large size companies, the network security policy may require that all unassigned “well-known” ports be blocked for all incoming and outgoing traffic.  If this security scenario applies to you, you can apply a few network filters to ensure that the Impact Estimator is able to communicate with the Morrison Hershfield registration server.

In the specific case of the Impact Estimator, you may need to configure your router to permit outbound traffic for port 271.  Depending on the strictness of your network security policy, access to this port can be filtered as follows:

  1. Time filtering can be employed to create a “schedule” during which outbound traffic will be permitted on Port 271.  For instance, Monday through Friday 8:00 AM through 8:00 PM.
  2. Port filtering can be employed to permit outbound traffic on port 271.
  3. HTTP filtering can be employed to permit communication only with the Morrison Hershfield web server located at http://www.morrisonhershfield.com or the registration servlet located on port 271 of the same server.
  4. MAC filtering can be employed to permit communication on port 271 only for computers with specific MAC addresses.  The MAC addresses should belong to the computers on which the Impact Estimator software is installed.
  5. A combination of the above filters can be employed or combined to effectively restrict access to port 271 to a specific computer (MAC Address) during a particular schedule.

GENERAL PROGRAM NOTES

Microsoft® 7 Notes:

  1. 32 Bit: The application has not been officially been tested on 32 Bit versions of Windows 7. Some users have successfully installed and run the application using 32 Bit versions of Windows 7.
  2. 64 Bit: The application has not been officially been tested on 64 Bit versions of Windows 7. Some users have successfully installed and run the application using 64 Bit versions of Windows 7.
  3. User Account Control: For all types of Windows 7, if you have User Account Control turned on, when you launch the ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings application, a User Account Control prompt might be displayed and you may be prompted to consent to running the application. Click the "ALLOW" button to run the application, or "CANCEL" to quit.

Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Notes:

  1. 32 Bit: The application has been tested on Vista 32 Ultimate and Business.
  2. 64 Bit: The application has been tested on Vista 64 Home Premium.
  3. User Account Control: For all types of Vista, if you have User Account Control turned on, when you launch the ATHENA® Impact Estimator for Buildings application, a User Account Control prompt might be displayed and you may be prompted to consent to running the application. Click the "ALLOW" button to run the application, or "CANCEL" to quit.

General Operating System Notes:

  1. The Impact Estimator will not run on Windows 3.1™ or MAC OS and has not been tested on Windows 95/98/2000/NT™.
  2. When copied and decompressed The Impact Estimator for Buildings 4 takes up approximately 120 Mb of disk space. Microsoft® Windows XP/Vista™/7 and 512 MB of RAM are the minimum hardware and software systems requirements.
  3. We assume you are familiar with the basic operation of Microsoft® Windows XP/Vista™/7, such as opening files, saving files, and clicking on menu items. If not, please refer to your Windows XP/Vista™/7 User’s Guide.

Previous Version Project File Incompatibility:

  1. Project files from older Impact Estimator versions, including version 3.0.3, cannot be loaded into the version 4 of the tool.

 

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ATHENA® is a registered trade mark of the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute
page updated  7 June, 2010