Computer Software for Steel Professionals
Downloading a Version 17.0 Structural Material Manager Patch
As long as you already have a registered Version 17.0 Structural Material Manager system installed, you may download the latest maintenance system from the E.J.E. Industries, Inc. Web site. There is no charge to registered Version 17.0 customers for this release.
Before beginning, let's get an overview of the procedures that will be followed. You'll be using your Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, etc.) to download a new Structural Material Manager system from our Web site. The new system is stored in the form of a program named Patch.Exe. You'll simply use your browser to save this Patch.Exe program to some location on your PC. Later, you'll run Patch.Exe, and it will allow you to install Structural Material Manager.
It is important to note that the PC on which you run Structural Material Manager and that on which you access the Internet need not be the same. You can download Patch.Exe on a PC that has Internet access, copy it to some sort of high-capacity media such as a USB Flash drive, and later bring that media to the PC on which you want to install Structural Material Manager.
Now that the overview has hopefully familiarized you with the basic strategy, follow these steps:
1) Back up any Structural Material Manager jobs that you can't afford to lose. Patching your system using the following steps carries almost no risk to your job data, but "better safe than sorry" applies as usual!
2) You can download the Patch.Exe file either from our HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) server or our FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server.
All browsers support HTTP transfers, and HTTP should thus be your first choice. Click here to download from the HTTP Server.
We maintain FTP support only as a second choice for those experiencing trouble downloading from the HTTP server. The reason: FTP support has been removed from the latest versions of all mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Edge and Firefox. A legacy browser such as Internet Explorer, or a modern browser such as Edge run in Internet Explorer mode, may thus be needed for FTP transfers. Click here to try the FTP Server if, and only if, you experienced trouble with the HTTP download. If clicking the FTP link appears to do absolutely nothing, or if you are asked to choose an application to handle the FTP download, it is a sure sign that your browser does not support FTP downloads.
3) Clicking one of the above links should open the "Save As" dialog for the Patch.Exe file.
It is possible that rather than opening the Save As dialog, your browser instead asked whether you want to run Patch or save it to disk. If this sort of question appears, choose to save the file to disk. Upon choosing this option, the desired Save As dialog should appear.
4) We'll assume that you now have the Save As dialog open. Before actually saving the file, pay careful attention to the following:
- The drive and folder, such as "My Documents" on Drive C:, in which the file is being saved. Your Windows Desktop makes a good choice as a place to save the file, as Patch.Exe will be easy to later find there.
- The name under which the file is being saved. This usually will be Patch.Exe, but it is possible that your browser will substitute some variation of this name.
After noting the above items, and changing them if desired, click or press whatever button (usually "Save") your browser requires to begin saving the file.
5) Once the download is finished, close the Save As dialog (if it did not close automatically), and exit the browser. The Internet phase of the process is now done.
6) Most users probably downloaded Patch.Exe to the same machine PC on which they will install Structural Material Manager; this is the simplest case, and you may simply proceed to the next step if this indeed describes your situation. If necessary, however, computer-literate users can copy Patch.Exe to a USB Flash drive or other high-capacity media which can later be brought to another PC. No specific directions will be presented here on how to do this since the required procedures vary greatly among different hardware and software combinations. Copy Patch.Exe to such media at this time only if necessary (perhaps because you don’t have Internet access at the machine on which Structural Material Manager is to be installed).
7) If you saved the file to the Windows Desktop, simply find the Patch.Exe icon there, and double-click it. If you saved Patch.Exe to some other location, you'll of course have to first browse to that location before double-clicking the Patch.Exe item.
8) The Structural Material Manager setup utility will automatically appear when Patch.Exe is run; follow the prompts to install as usual.
If an error message appears upon executing Patch.Exe, then the downloaded file is probably corrupt. If you get an error message, simply download the file again. Note that it makes sense to switch to a different E.J.E. Industries server if you are experiencing problems. For instance, if a download from our HTTP server did not work, try the FTP server the next time. Remember that in order to access the FTP server, you may need a legacy browser such as Internet Explorer or a modern browser such as Edge in Internet Explorer mode.
Note that the setup program contained in Patch.Exe cannot be used for a full installation. It can only be used to update an existing system of the same major version (perhaps to update 17.0a to 17.0b).
Some users may need to patch multiple, stand-alone (non-networked) PC's. The Internet-based steps need followed just once, so once you have downloaded Patch.Exe at one PC, it can simply be run at each station that needs updated.
Systems in which multiple network workstations access a single Structural Material Manager installation on a server's shared drive do not require Patch.Exe to be run at every workstation. The best way to patch all the systems at once is usually to run Patch.Exe at just one of the workstations that accesses Structural Material Manager and to choose the shared (mapped) drive letter in the Setup program’s drive-selection box. This works well because you are guaranteed that the drive mapping to the server is correct from the workstation's perspective since that station is known to already run Structural Material Manager properly. Once you've installed to the mapped network drive at one of the workstations, all other workstations will automatically have access to the updated system.
If Structural Material Manager’s setup program listed only local drives (such as C:) in the drop-down list of available destinations, and your intended network drive (such as F:, H:, etc.) did not appear, the trouble probably arose because you invoked Patch.Exe with the "Run as admin" option. Beginning in Windows Vista, Microsoft made a change in which any elevated process (such as one invoked with "Run as admin") actually runs in a separate logon "behind the scenes." That separate logon has access to UNC paths but not mapped network drives. That behavior introduced in Vista is inherited by even the very latest Windows versions, and it prevents mapped network drives from being listed in the setup program's dropdown drive box if the "Run as admin" option was used. Just invoke Patch.Exe directly, and all drives - even mapped network ones - will be listed.
If an antivirus program or network security policy prevents you from downloading executable files, you'll not be able to download the self-extracting Patch.Exe archive. That is why E.J.E. Industries also offers a normal archive as an alternative: Patch.Zip. Both the self-extracting Patch.Exe archive and the normal Upgrade.Zip archive contain the exact same files. If, and only if, your system prevented you from downloading Patch.Exe, download Patch.Zip from either the HTTP Server (available in all browsers) or the FTP Server (available only in legacy browsers). Unlike Patch.Exe which can be run directly, the contents of Patch.Zip will need extracted to some location on your PC. You may wish to extract the numerous files contained therein to the "Downloads" area of your PC or some other temporary location. Regardless of where you extract the files, SetupSMM.Exe is the program you‘ll then launch.