3ds Max - Installation

On Windows, the plug-in is provided as a self-extracting installer. The plug-in is compatible with Windows XP and above and with Max 2011 and above (64-bit only). The installer will automatically detect which versions of Max are present on the system and where they are located:

Custom Windows install

If you only want to extract the plug-in files without copying them to the Max directories (e.g. for creating a package or some other form of customized deployment), you can change the autodetected path for the relevant Max version to point to an empty directory (the directory must exist). You may want to uncheck "Uninstaller" in the Components page, since you probably don't need an uninstaller to be created in this case.

The install directory for a given Max version is determined by looking at the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\3dsmax\Version\MAX-1:409\Installdir for Max 2011-2012 and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\3dsmax\Version\Installdir for Max 2013-2015. These keys are set by the Max installer. If you ever move Max to a different directory after installing it, make sure you update the corresponding keys, or the Maxwell plug-in installer will be unable to find the new path.

Silent Windows install

The plug-in can be installed silently by passing the /S flag on the command line:

    maxwell_max_win_3.0.1.exe /S

In this mode, the installer will use the autodetected directories and will not ask any questions.