It has come to our attention that the installer is apparently having difficulty satisfying the prerequisite of finding MAXWELL4_ROOT on some installations. The installer has always required this, but it seems that the Maxwell installer may be setting MAXWELL4_ROOT only at the User level. So, if you get an error during the installation, indicating that Maxwell Render could not be found, or Maxwell Render doesn't start, please edit your machine's Environment variables, adding a System Environment variable called MAXWELL4_ROOT, which points to your Maxwell Render directory, and another called MAXWELL4_MATERIALS_DATABASE environment variable pointing to your material database folder (usually inside the Maxwell 3 installation folder).
The two environment variables should be:
- Name: MAXWELL4_ROOT Value: C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell Studio 4 (or the location of your Maxwell install if different from this default one).
- Name: MAXWELL4_MATERIALS_DATABASE Value: C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell Studio 4\materials database (or the location where you installed the Material Database, if different from this default location)
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The System Environment variables are located in the lower box, as seen here:
Environment variables may be accessed from:
Windows Vista
- going to the Start menu
- right-clicking 'Computer'
- clicking 'Properties'
- in the dialog box, clicking the 'Advanced System Settings' link
- clicking 'Environment variables'
Windows 7
- going to the Start menu
- right-click 'Computer'
- choose 'Properties'
- click 'Advanced system settings' on the left hand side of the window that opens
- in the window that opens go to the 'Advanced' tab and click the Environment Variables button
Windows 8 or 10
- tap Windows key
- type Environment Variables and hit Enter
- System Properties window will open
- Click Environment Variables button