Software: Windows 10 with latest updates is recommended. Windows 7 is still supported.

OptiLayer executable files are encrypted in order to prevent hacking attempts, and it is the reason of false-positive diagnostics of some 3rd party anti-viruses.

OptiLayer Thin Film software is a desktop software protected by a hardware key (dongle). OptiLayer executable files have digital code-signing certificate, the validity of certificates confirms that the files are in their original form, as they were created at our company OptiLayer GmbH.

OptiLayer has almost no requirements for network use, its Internet access can be safely disabled by your firewall. We use network access only for listed below tasks:

  • Search of Network dongles if they are used. In the case of local keys it should not be performed.
  • Check if a new OptiLayer version has been released (contacting our web site www.optilayer.org). This function can be also disabled.
  • Bug reports. If a bug happens, OptiLayer software proposes to send a bug report to our company. If the user agrees, it will prearrange an e-mail at the user’s computer, and the user can finally decide, whether to send the report or not.

To summarize: All Network access is optional and under full control from your side.

There are simple steps to verify if OptiLayer need to be included into exclusions list:

  1. Install OptiLayer from the installation package. Check if you have any error message during the installation. If yes, you need to exclude installation package and/or OptiLayer installation location from run-time checks.
  2. After installation attach the dongle.
  3. Try to launch OptiLayer, OptiChar, OptiRE using desktop shortcuts. Each of them should start and open the main window with menu and General Information Window (fresh installation) or previous configuration (update). If one of these programs hangs or cannot start, you need to exclude it from antivirus scanning.
  4. Verify that COM Type Libraries correctly registered in Windows. Sometimes anti-viruses block this important step.
  5. Open OptiLayer and make sure that you see “Plot Engine” command in the Analysis menu.
  6. Open “OptiLayer Automation Examples” shortcut at the desktop, select VB6 sub-folder with pre-compiled examples and try to to run examples for OptiLayer and OptiRE. In these examples “Load…” function should be able to launch OptiLayer or OptiRE, in the case of error messages there are installation problems. At some cases 32bit VB6 executable cannot run 64 bit versions of OptiLayer programs. In this case we recommend to try more advanced Python or C# examples.