Getting Started with Arena® 16.

2
Arena version 16.2 provides enhanced capabilities for your Business

Dear Arena Customer:

On behalf of Rockwell Automation, I would like to thank you for your purchase of Arena Simulation software. We
are pleased to deliver the latest version of Arena—16.2! Your support is an important reason that Arena continues
to be the #1 global discrete event simulation tool.

The Arena product family is designed to be an integral part of your business decision-making and continuous
improvement initiatives. Arena’s capabilities and their resulting benefits have been proven across a wide range of
industries, applications, and business processes. Our unique flowcharting methodology enables users to quickly
and easily develop simulation models without the need for custom programming.

This latest release includes a number of usability enhancements that make modeling of complex processes
easier. As always, you have the confidence in knowing that these enhancements were built upon the solid,
proven foundation of Arena’s trusted simulation engine and easy-to-use modeling paradigm.

We encourage you to take full advantage of all the resources available to you as an Arena user. Our website,
www.ArenaSimulation.com, provides access to a wealth of information including videos on advanced modeling
techniques, on-demand webcasts, FAQs and a link to the Rockwell Engage Community. Information is also available
from the Help and Manuals group of the Home tab, giving you quick access to online help, updates about any
existing software issues as well as information on training and support. For customers that subscribe to our
maintenance program our experienced support engineers are available to provide specific answers to your
questions via phone or e-mail.

Our primary goal is to enable you to address the challenges you face in your business and to give you the tools to
establish a competitive advantage for your organization. As our valued customer, we are interested in your
opinions, comments, and suggestions on how we can enable you to achieve these goals. If you would like to
share your thoughts or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

The Arena Simulation Team

[email protected]

Getting Started w Arena v16.2 [PN-679663] Page 1 of 8

 Contents
Technical Support, Services and Registration Transfer ................................................................................... 3
Arena Installation Notes .................................................................................................................................. 4
Arena Maintenance Update ............................................................................................................................ 6
Arena® Silent Install Instructions ...................................................................................................................... 7

Getting Started w Arena v16.2 [PN-679663] Page 2 of 8

 Technical Support, Services, and Registration Transfer
Who Is Eligible for Technical Support?
Support is available to all commercial clients who are currently under a support maintenance contract. Some new
products include 60 days of technical support. Check with your Account Manager if you are unsure.

What Does Technical Support Provide?

Rockwell Automation provides full support for the entire Arena family of products, including Arena Standard and
Professional editions; OptQuest with Arena; and the Arena Packaging template. Questions concerning installation,
how modules work, the use of the model editor, and the use of the software are handled by technical support.

Technical support for the Arena family of products includes:

• Online help and manuals

• Technical support hotline and e-mail address staffed by full-time, experienced simulation professionals
• Help with installation problems or questions related to the software’s requirements
• Limited support regarding the interaction of Arena with other software packages
• Support of the Arena Object Model, which is used in Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications
NOTE: Rockwell Automation technical support group does not provide programming assistance.

Contact Technical Support and Services

United States Outside United States

Phone Support 1.440.646.6789
Support hours are 8:30 am to 5:00 pm ET, Monday through Friday. Visit www.ArenaSimulation.com to
Please have the serial number of your active product available. find the contact information for your
E-Mail Support [email protected] local Arena representative.
Sales Support 1.412.375.4706
[email protected]

Self-Service Support Visit our support section online here.

• Arena Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Ask a Question on Rockwell Automation's Engage Community Site

From the Home Tab:

• Access Arena Online Help
• Product Manuals
• Latest Release Notes
From the File Tab:
• Smarts and Example Files

Arena Training Schedules Interested in getting one-on-one training for you or your team? Visit the Training Page on our website to
and Information sign up today!
Software Registration Transfer
The Arena Team sends important product information and provides technical support to the registered owner of
an Arena product. Software is automatically registered in the purchaser’s name. By keeping your registration
current, you protect your software investment. If you wish to transfer the ownership of your software or change
your company’s contact names, please contact Technical Support.

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Arena Installation Notes
• At least a 2GB GDDR5 (Graphics Double Data
Rate, version 5) SGRAM; this is a high- performance
Minimum System Requirements graphics card. Any graphics card that can be used
• Arena® software, version 16.20.03 for extreme gaming will generally fit these criteria
• FactoryTalk® Activation Manager 5.00.12 Note: The running and animation of Arena and some
• Hard drive with 2GB free disk space (or more) large simulation models can be calculation-intensive, so
a faster processor with additional memory may result in
• 8GB RAM (or more)
significantly improved performance. In addition, a larger
• Intel® dual-core processor (or more), 3GHz
monitor and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 is
(or faster)
recommended for improved animation viewing.
• Microsoft Office® (to view the new model
statistics report Excel spreadsheet). Arena
supports Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise, Operating Systems
Office 2016/2019/2021 (Consumer Version Arena is a Windows application that runs on both 32-bit
2009 or later). Other versions of Office, for and 64-bit operating systems.
example Office Pro Plus 2019 C2R, are not You must have Administrative privileges to install the
officially supported but may work with the software.
installation of Access 2013 Runtime.
We support the following operating systems:
• Microsoft Windows® 10 Pro/Enterprise
Recommended System Requirements • Microsoft Windows® 11 Pro/Enterprise
• Arena® software, version 16.20.03 • Windows® Server 2016
• Hard drive with 4GB free disk space (or more) • Arena 32-bit can be installed on x64 versions
16GB RAM (or more) of Windows and will run as a 32-bit
application. Arena 64-bit will run as a 64-bit
• Intel® dual-core processor (or more), 3GHz
application on x64 versions of Windows.
(or faster)
• Internet access for installing FactoryTalk The Arena software can be run on single processor,
activations multi- processor, and multi-core processor
computers; you can only run one instance of Arena at
Graphics Configuration a time. The Arena Visual Designer tool will take
Applicable for the Arena Visual Designer tool in advantage of multi-core capability to maintain graphic
Arena Standard Edition and Professional Edition update speed.
packages. Software Installation Steps
Minimum Requirements Please read carefully the “Activate Rockwell
Graphics card should have 512MB or more of dedicated Software Products” document enclosed in your
DDR3 type or better memory. Below are example product package or accessible electronically
graphics cards that meet the minimum requirements: through the install screen before you install your
Arena software.
• NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M (or better)
Browse to autorun.exe in the MediaImage folder
• NVIDIA NVS 3100M (or better)
where the software installation download
• NVIDIA Quadro PCI-E Series (or better) was extracted and double-click it to start the
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 (or better) installation.
1. Select Install Arena from the install dialog box.
Recommended Requirements When prompted for a serial number, enter the
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL 2.0 serial number from the Activation Certificate. Note:
compatible You may receive multiple serial numbers if you
• Pixel and Vertex Shaders 2.0 compatible have add-on products. Enter the serial number
from the Arena product only (for example, Arena
Standard Edition or Arena Professional Edition). If
Getting Started w Arena v16.2 [PN-679663] Page 4 of 8
 you do not have an activation, leave this field 3. Once the installation is complete, reboot your
blank. Note: Arena serial numbers are numeric computer if requested.
only. If your serial number contains an alpha
4. To activate your Arena software, if using a
character, enter the number “9” instead.
commercial or research license, browse to
2. When choosing a custom location on the computer’s setup.exe in the MediaImage\Install
hard drive to install Arena, please note that Arena \FTActivationManager folder where the
will be placed in a subfolder of the one you specify. software installation download was extracted
For example, if you install Arena 16.2 and specify the and double-click it to start the installation of
install folder “C:\”, the software will be installed in the FactoryTalk Activation Manager software.
the “C:\Arena” folder.

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 Click the Manage Activations tab.
Arena Maintenance Update
Click Rehost Activations.
Enclosed is the product update for your Arena A list of activations found on the computer’s hard
software from your current version to version drive will be displayed.
16.2. If you have questions about the software Select the activations you want to rehost. You can
installation, refer to the “Arena Software select one or more activations to rehost.
Installation Notes” document.
Click the Continue Rehosting button. Review the
During installation, you will be prompted for the Confirm Activation Removal dialog.
software serial number. Enter the number that
was provided with your version 16.2 shipment. If Click the Continue button. The selected
a previous version of Arena is on your machine, activations will be removed from the computer
Arena will automatically uninstall earlier versions and will now be available for download from the
before proceeding with the installation. If the Rockwell Automation Activation web site.
automatic uninstall fails, you can uninstall Arena Use your serial number and product key, enclosed
manually using the Control Panel. with your activation certificate, to download your
license file. Open the
Software updates from all previous versions of
FactoryTalk Activation Manager
Arena will require a rehost of your current license.
(Start/Programs/Rockwell Software/FactoryTalk
Activation Manager). Click on the Manage
Activations tab and Get New Activations. See
To rehost your Arena license:
the “Activate Rockwell Software Products”
Open the FactoryTalk Activation Manager document for additional details on activating
(Start/Programs/Rockwell Software/FactoryTalk your updated license.
Activation Manager). If you need technical support for the Arena
• Arena 16.2 includes the latest FactoryTalk product, please call (1) 440.646.6789 to reach
Activation Manager version 5.00.12. The Arena Support, or you can email arena-
Arena 16.2 interface to license activation [email protected].
is not compatible with previous versions of
the FactoryTalk Activation Manager
(version 4.00.01 for example).

• Arena will not start if you don’t have

version 5.00.12 of the FactoryTalk
Activation Manager installed in order to
use an Arena license.

• If rehosting on a server, make sure that no

Arena users are currently using the
software, and stop the service using the
Advanced tab of the FactoryTalk Activation
Manager.

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 • Enter the command below, if you want to add
Arena® Silent Install Instructions verbose logging to the silent install:
The Arena install supports the Microsoft® • msiexec /I “C:\YourPathToArenaInstaller\
Windows® Installer silent install application
Arena.msi” /QN /L*v “LogFileName”
installation and configuration service. The silent
PIDKEY=”YourSerialNumber”
install allows users to install Arena entirely from
COMPANYNAME=”YourCompanyName”
the command line without a user interface
USERNAME=”UserName” ALLUSERS=1
appearing during the install process. The silent
install can be used by IT departments to deploy
Arena remotely with tools such as Altiris™. • PIDKEY, COMPANYNAME, etc., are explained below.
Other Silent Install Options:
Support for the various /Q options are also available.
Silent Install and Prerequisites
You can substitute the “/QN” above for any of the
The silent install does not install any of the
options below:
prerequisite software that is installed by the
Arena setup.exe. The prerequisites can be • /Q – same as /QN. Install with no user interface.
found in the Redist folder of the Arena media. • /QB – Install showing a basic user interface.
Choose the appropriate version of each • /QR – Install showing a reduced user interface. A
prerequisite (64 or 32 bit) based on which modal dialog is presented at the end of the
version of Arena you are installing. The installation.
prerequisites below must be installed (if not • /QF – Install showing a full user interface. A modal
already installed) prior to running the Arena dialog is presented at the end of the installation.
silent install:
• /QN+ – Install with no user interface, but a modal
• .NET 4.8 or higher dialog is presented at the end of the installation.
• Microsoft® Windows Installer 3.1 (or higher) • /QB+ – Install showing a basic user interface. A
• Visual Basic for Applications 7.1 modal dialog is presented at the end of the
• Visual Basic for Application 7.1 1033 installation. If the install is cancelled, the modal
• Microsoft HTML Help 1.32 Update dialog is not presented.
• /QB- Install showing a basic user interface. No
modal dialogs are displayed.
Performing a Silent Installation with Windows
Installer • Support for the various logging options is also
available. See the msiexec command line options for
• Go to the command prompt. more on logging. You can substitute the “/L*v”
• Locate the path to the Arena Windows Installer file. above for any of the logging options described the
The file for Arena is called Arena.msi and is located msiexec help.
on the install media in the “Install\ Arena” folder.
• Enter the command below:
• Msiexec
/I“C:\YourPathToArenaInstaller\Arena.msi”
/QN PIDKEY=”YourSerialNumber”
COMPANYNAME=”YourCompanyName”
USERNAME=”UserName” ALLUSERS=1

• PIDKEY, COMPANYNAME, etc., are explained below.

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Install Properties
Passing install properties on the msiexec
command line is required because the install
needs the information to set Arena registry keys.
The properties are normally given values when a
user installs Arena in an interactive mode. The
msiexec command line examples shown above
illustrate how the properties are passed to the
install in silent mode.
PIDKEY, COMPANYNAME, and USERNAME are
install properties used by the install to set
various registry keys.
• PIDKEY, COMPANYNAME, USERNAME, ALLUSERS
and CONTROL_LAUNCH are install properties
used by the install to set various registry keys.
• COMPANYNAME – Your company name. Enclose
the name in double quotes if you want spaces in
your company name.
• USERNAME – The name of the user of the
installed version of Arena. Enclose the name in
double quotes if you want spaces in the user
name.

• ALLUSERS – Must be set to 1 to install Arena for

all users of the computer.

FactoryTalk Activation Manager Silent Install

The FactoryTalk Activation Manager Windows
Installer package allows for all levels of
installation UI levels (Full; Reduced; Basic; None
= silent). The FactoryTalk Activation Manager
silent install does not check or automatically
install any prerequisites. See the FactoryTalk
Activation Manager documentation for a list of
prerequisites and how to perform a silent install.

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