Software: Mathematica is a mathematical application software of the company Wolfram Research. The CIT has licensed the products Mathematica and gridMathematica, which can be used free of charge via a network license. Mathematica can be used on all computer platforms supported by the manufacturer, i.e. Windows, macOS and Linux.
Target Group: students, employees
Usage Costs: free of charge
Download: Download Section
Contact: Hotline
License types
The licenses are rented including updates and support. There are 30 network licenses available for free use by the users. Network licenses allow the online use of Mathematica. A computer on which such a license is to be used must therefore belong to the University Münster area (possible for home workstations via VPN) and be permanently connected to the Internet while working with the program. The licenses are monitored by a license manager.
License period
The current Mathematica contract of the University Münster runs from 01.09.2022 to 01.05.2025. The validity of the licenses is limited to one year each (01.09. - 31.08.). They are therefore renewed once a year.
Software version and costs
Mathematica is currently available in version 14. The licenses for Wolfram Research products are financed by central funds. The use of the network licenses is therefore free of charge for the users.
Download & Installation
In the download area you will find the installation files for the different operating systems.
Download Section for Mathematica
The downloadable installation files for Mathematica are as follows:
Windows: Mathematica_14.0.0_WIN
MacOS: M-OSX-L-14.0.0.dmg
Linux: Mathematica_14.0.0_LINUX.sh
Afterwards, the installation process can be started.
License activation
After the installation Mathematica has to be activated. However, it is possible that valid license information is taken over from an existing installation. Then this step is omitted.
Start Mathematica after the installation. The Product Activation Wizard will open. Click the "Other ways to activate" button in the lower left corner.
In the following window, select the "Connect to a network license server" button. Note an existing VPN connection for an installation outside the university network.
In the next window you need the address of the license server. Enter mathematica.uni-muenster.de and confirm the entry with "Activate".
Now confirm the license agreement by ticking the message "I accept the terms of agreement" and click the "OK" button. Mathematica is now activated and can be used.
A local installation under Linux is not mandatory, because a preinstalled version can be used as well. For this, include the directory /Applic.ZIV/bin in the path of the user. Mathematica is then started by the command math or mathematica. Possibly there are commands for older versions, which are marked by appropriate version numbers. For more information, see the documentation on software installation under Linux.
Note for system administrators
If the activation is forgotten after the installation, then every user of the corresponding installation must go through the activation process at the first start. This usually leads to confusion, as it is not clear exactly what needs to be done. The associated licensing information then ends up in different places in the user's home directory, depending on the operating system.
Also, on multi-user systems, if activation is done by a system administrator immediately after installation, the licensing information may not necessarily be found in Mathematica's installation directory, but in a local directory. This can result in users who use the installation from a different computer also having to go through the activation process again.
To avoid these problems, the activation can also be done directly. To do this, change in the installation directory of Mathematica to the subdirectory
Configuration/Licensing
and create a file named mathpass, which contains a single line with the name of the license server preceded by an exclamation mark:
!mathematica.uni-muenster.de