Instructions for running KnotPlot on Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2000/XP machines

Rob Scharein, 30 April 2002

This document contains information that can probably be ignored if KnotPlot runs fine on your system.  If you get missing DLL errors, then read the section below on OpenGL/GLUT. If KnotPlot complains after it is started about not being able to find its "home", then you will need to read the section below on running KnotPlot.

OpenGL/GLUT

The KnotPlot distribution now comes with GLUT already installed. The glut32.dll file is included in the KnotPlot home folder. Please note that DLL files are hidden by default in most Windows systems, so you may not see the file. You can do one of two things with the glut32.dll file: A newer version of the glut32.dll file may be obtained from one of the GLUT web sites listed below, KnotPlot should work fine with a newer version.

If you have Windows 95, see the section later in this file for information regarding OpenGL. All modern version of Windows come with OpenGL already installed.

KnotPlot download page: http://www.pims.math.ca/knotplot/

GLUT site: http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut3.html

GLUT for Win32 site: http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html This is the place to get the glut32.dll file from.

Running KnotPlot

KnotPlot will not run without its set of support files, the "KnotPlot Distribution". This distribution contains all the knots in the Rolfsen catalogue, plus many demos and other special goodies. If you've installed KnotPlot to the location
   C:\Program Files\KnotPlot
then KnotPlot should run fine. This folder is the "KnotPlot Home". If you look in the KnotPlot home folder, you should see a number of sub-folders, including
    basic   demos   resource   special
plus several others.

It's possible that you might have installed KnotPlot to a folder other than C:\Program Files\KnotPlot or D:\Program Files\KnotPlot. In this case you have to let KnotPlot know where its home is. In Windows NT/2000, this is simple, you can set the environment variable KNOTPLOT_HOME to point to wherever the KnotPlot home actually is. There is a similar mechanism under Windows 95/98/ME.

When KnotPlot starts up, it tries to find the KnotPlot home folder in the following locations:

KnotPlot uses the first of these that it can find. If it can't find its home, KnotPlot will complain and exit.

INSTALLING OPENGL (WINDOWS 95 ONLY)

This section APPLIES ONLY TO SOME WINDOWS 95 SYSTEMS. If you have Windows 98 or NT or ME or 2000 or XP, you already have OpenGL installed, and you can ignore everything in this section.

Some older Windows 95 machines don't have OpenGL installed. If your machine is one of these, you should obtain the DLL files

glu32.dll and opengl32.dll

from Microsoft and install them in the appropriate location. You'll be able to tell that you don't have the DLL files, because you will get an error when running KnotPlot if you don't have them.