Siemens Help

Server
Installation Guide
for Windows
 Contents

Conventions and requirements 1-1

Hardware and Software requirements 2-1

Web-served documentation 3-1

Setting up the Siemens Help Server 4-1

Installing product documentation 5-1

Access deployed documentation 6-1

Changing the ports 7-1

Removing the Siemens Help Server 8-1

Log files 9-1

Troubleshooting 10-1

Installation assistance 11-1

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 1. Conventions and requirements
Conventions

All references to "Windows" in this manual refer to 64-bit versions of Windows 10 or Windows 2016.

Windows menu items and commands appear in bold letters or courier font.

An arrow (→) is used to represent submenus on Windows machines, for example, Start→Siemens Help
Server→Launch Help Server. If you do not have the Symbol font installed, or if you browse this
document on a non-Windows computer, you may see the registered trademark symbol (®) in place of
the arrows.

Requirements

The Siemens Help Server installation requires the following:

Java (64-bit) Java 1.8

Note: For products requiring Java 1.7 (for example, Teamcenter 11.2.x), use one of the following
workarounds:

• Access the help directly from the Siemens Support Center internet site rather than a local installation.

• Run the Siemens Help Server on a different machine that has Java 1.8 installed. One system can
support many users, so multiple people can point to the same documentation server.

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 1. Conventions and requirements

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 2. Hardware and Software requirements
Siemens Help Server does not require a high-end server configuration hardware. However, if you intend
to deploy a single instance of the Siemens Help Server accessed on Intranet by a large number of users,
you must deploy it on a computer with better processor and RAM configuration.

Hardware requirements

Following is a list of hardware requirements:

• Processor
A modern processor with multiple cores is recommended. The Siemens Help Server tends to be light
on processor usage.

• Memory
While 32 GB RAM is recommended, Siemens Help Server works on machines with 16 GB RAM also.

• Disk space
The Siemens Help Server requires about 250 MB of hard disk space. However, the space required
increases as you install the documentation packages. You must provision for a minimum of 5 GB of
hard disk space if you intend to install documentation for multiple products.

Software requirements

This release of Siemens Help Server is supported on Windows 10 and Windows 2016 only.

The Siemens Help Server uses Elasticsearch to provide the search capabilities. The version of
Elasticsearch bundled with Siemens Help Server requires Java 8 or Java 11. Elasticsearch supports only
Oracle's Java and OpenJDK. The following Java version is supported:

The following releases of Java are supported:

• Oracle Java 8

• Azul Zulu Java 8

• AdoptOpenJDK 8

• Azul Zulu Java 11

• AdoptOpenJDK 11

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 2. Hardware and Software requirements

JAVA_HOME must be defined as a system environment variable only and not as a user
environment variable. You must set it to a 64 bit Java installation.

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 3. Web-served documentation
The Siemens Digital Industries Software product documentation is a web served application that can be
locally deployed for a single user or be hosted on an Intranet site for multiple users.

The Siemens Help Server is a common documentation server intended to be shared by Siemens Digital
Industries Software products. Customers must decide on either a local installation using the help server
kit or a company-wide deployment of the same Help Server for multi-user environment.

Installing the Siemens Help Server does not automatically give you access to the product
documentation. You must download and install the product documentation after installing the Siemens
Help Server.

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 3. Web-served documentation

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 4. Setting up the Siemens Help Server
The Siemens Help Server and the documentation bundles are available on Siemens Support Center.

Download the Siemens Help Server

1. Click Siemens Documentation Installer tile on Siemens Support Center.

2. Click Downloads.

3. From the Select a version dropdown list, select Siemens Documentation Server 1.

4. Click the Siemens Documentation Server 1.0 tile.

5. From the list of available platforms, click Windows64.

6. Click HelpServer.n.n.n.exe and save the downloaded file.

Where n.n.n is a numeric version number for the installer. For example, HelpServer.1.0.3.exe.

Note:
To download the help for the Siemens Help Server installer, click docs-siemens-plm-
documentation-server-1.0-en-US.zip.
For information on installing documentation, see Installing product documentation.

Install the Siemens Help Server

Note:
You must run the installer as an administrator or with an account with administrative privileges.
To view if you have administrative privileges, open Control Panel and click User Accounts →
Manage User Accounts. See the groups that your user account is added to.

1. Navigate to the location where you downloaded the Siemens Help Server installer and double-click
HelpServer.n.n.n.exe.
Where n.n.n is the numeric version number for the installer.
The installation is a wizard driven process.

2. Select a language for the installer.

3. Review the message on the Welcome screen and click Next.

4. On the Choose Shortcut Location screen, select a location where you want the shortcut to be
created and click Next.

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 4. Setting up the Siemens Help Server

5. On the Choose Installation Folder screen, select the location where you want to install the
application and click Next.

Note:
If you are installing the Siemens Help Server on Windows 2016, change the installation path
to C:\apps\HelpServer. Ensure that you do not have spaces in the path name.

Note:
You must ensure that the drive where you are installing the Siemens Help Server has
sufficient space for the document installation later. If the location where you are installing
the Siemens Help Server is monitored by a virus scanner, the subsequent installation of the
product documentation takes significantly longer.

6. On the Set Ports screen, enter ports for the application and storage and click Next.

7. On the Set Multiuser mode screen, you can configure if the installation of Siemens Help Server
needs to be accessible over the network.
If you want the Help Server to be accessible over the network, select Yes and click Next.

8. On the Pre-Installation Summary screen, review the installation parameters. To accept the
parameters and install the Siemens Help Server, click Install.

9. After the installation is complete, on the Install Status screen, click Next.

10. On the Installation Complete screen, click Done.

The Siemens Help Server is installed and the corresponding services are started on your machine.
However, you will not be able to access any documentation until you install it.

If you encounter errors during installation, see the Troubleshooting section of this guide to resolve
common errors.

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 5. Installing product documentation
Depending on your entitlement, you will be able to view and download the documentation for a product
from the Siemens Support Center. For accessing the documentation locally, you must download and
install the documentation after installing the Siemens Help Server.

Download product documentation

1. Click the product tile for which you want to download the documentation.

2. Click Downloads.
Support Center displays a list of available versions for the product.

3. Click the version of the product for which you download the documentation.
A list of files available for downloads is displayed.

Caution:
You must download and install the English documentation package before installing the
documentation package of any other language.

4. Click the documentation zip that you want to download.

The documentation zip follows a naming convention of docs-product_name_version-
language_code.zip. For example, docs-electronic_design_automation_2.0.4-en-US.zip.
The file is downloaded to your machine.

Install product documentation

Note:
You must run the documentation installer as an administrator or from an account with
administrative privileges.

1. Extract the downloaded installer bundle.

Note:
If the folder where you extracted the installer bundle is scanned by a virus scanner, the
installation process can take significantly more time. The time taken can extend to three
hours for larger documentation set.

2. Navigate to the folder where you unzipped the documentation bundle and double-click
DocInstaller.n.n.exe. (Where n.n is the current version of the DocInstaller. For example,
DocInstaller.1.0.exe.)
The documentation is installed.

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 5. Installing product documentation

Depending on the size of the documentation, the installation process can take up to 30 minutes.

3. After the installation completes, click the corresponding link on the installer screen or open the URL
in a browser instance to access the documentation.

4. Click Done.

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 6. Access deployed documentation
After you have installed the Siemens Help Server and the product documentation, you access the
documentation using a Web browser. To access the documentation, open a Web browser and navigate
to the following URL:

http://localhost:<PORT>

Replace the PORT with the value that you specified for the application port during installation. For
example, if you accepted the defaults, the URL is:

http://localhost:5000

During the installation, if you selected to install the Siemens Help Server to be accessible over the
network, you can access the help page with the name or IP address of the host computer also. Open the
help page in a browser window using the following address format:

http://nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn:<PORT>

Where nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn is the IP address of the computer where the Siemens Help Server is installed
and <PORT> is the port that you specified during the installation. For example,

http://999.999.999.999:5000

The Siemens Help Server Documentation listing page is displayed. Click the link for the documentation
that you want to view.

Alternately, you can navigate to Start→Siemens Help Server→Launch Help Server. Siemens Help
Server is launched in your default browser.

The installed documentation is displayed in the Webpage.

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 6. Access deployed documentation

Click the documentation that you want to access.

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 7. Changing the ports
You should plan your installation and ports before you install the Siemens Help Server. However, if you
need to change the ports after the installation, you need to repeat the installation with the same or a
newer version of the installer.

Change ports

1. Run the Siemens Help Server installer by navigating to the location where you downloaded the
Siemens Help Server installer and double-click HelpServer.n.n.n.exe.
Where n.n.n is a numeric version number for the installer. For example, HelpServer.1.0.3.exe.
The installation is a wizard driven process.

2. Select the language for the installer and click OK.

3. On the Welcome screen, click Next.

4. On the Set Ports screen, enter the new application and storage port and click Next.

5. Click Install.

The installer updates the application and storage ports and refreshes the installation.

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 7. Changing the ports

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 8. Removing the Siemens Help Server
You can remove the Siemens Help Server from your computer using the Siemens Installer Program.
Siemens Installer Program is installed automatically when you install the Siemens Help Server. You can
uninstall the Siemens Help Server and the Siemens Installer Program. However, Siemens recommends
not removing the Siemens Installer Program as it can be used to manage other installed applications.

Remove Siemens Help Server

1. Click Start→Siemens→Uninstall Siemens Products.

Note:
If you select Uninstall Siemens Install then the Siemens Installer Program is removed. You
will not be able to remove the Siemens Help Server and will need to run the Siemens Help
Server installer again to install the Siemens Installer Program.

2. Select the language for the uninstaller and click OK.

3. Select Siemens Help Server and click Next.

4. Clear the Keep user-modified files check box.

If you want to keep the log files for diagnostics, you can leave the Keep user-modified files check
box selected.

5. Click Remove.

6. After the Siemens Help Server is removed, click Done.

Siemens Help Server is removed from your computer.

7. When the installer prompts you to remove the Siemens Installer Program, click No.

8. To close the Siemens Installer Program, click Exit.

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 8. Removing the Siemens Help Server

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 9. Log files
The Siemens Help Server has log files that can help you diagnose problems if the server does not run
correctly.

Log files from the Siemens PLM Documentation Service

Help server log files

The following log files are created and maintained by the Siemens Help Server.

• app.log

• errors.log

• exceptions.log

These files are created in the <Install_location>/logs folder.

Elastic search log files

Elasticsearch logs information on all operations and failures in different log files. These log files are
located in <Install_location>/elasticsearch-<version>/logs folder. The information in the logs are used for
debugging.

Documentation installer log files

The documentation installer also creates log files during the installation process. These log files are
located in <Unzip_location>/logs.

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 9. Log files

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 10. Troubleshooting
Here are some errors that you could possibly encounter during the installation process. The fixes for the
errors are listed.

Documentation folder is not found in path: <path>

You have moved the DocInstaller out for the location where the documentation zip was extracted.
Run the DocInstaller from the same location where you extracted the zip.
Siemens Help Server is not installed, please make sure you install it first.
You are trying to install the documentation without installing the Siemens Help Server. You must
install the Siemens Help Server and then run the installer to install the documentation.
Windows UAC warning stating that you need to allow the app to make changes.
You are running the installer from an account without administrative privileges. Run the installer as
an administrator or an account with administrative privileges.
Merging documentation failed. Please check you have the required privileges.
Right click the DocInstaller and select Run as administrator.
On navigating to http://localhost:5000, I see an error page with junk text.
Although you have installed the Siemens Help Server, you have not installed any documentation.

Download and install the documentation for the product for which you want to view the help.
On opening a documentation zip with the Windows file archiver, the following error is displayed:

Windows cannot open the folder. The compressed (zipped) Folder <zip_file_name>
is invalid.
Unzip it using a non-Windows file archiver like 7-Zip.

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 10. Troubleshooting

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 11. Installation assistance
The Siemens Help Server installer and the documentation installer is designed to install and configure
the Siemens Help Server with minimum user intervention. However, if you run into any issues with the
installation and need help with the installation, you can file a request by navigating to the following
URL:

https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/global/en/support/

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Siemens Digital Industries Software
Headquarters Europe
Granite Park One Stephenson House
5800 Granite Parkway Sir William Siemens Square
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USA +44 (0) 1276 413200
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About Siemens Digital Industries Software

Siemens Digital Industries Software is a leading global provider of product life cycle management
(PLM) software and services with 7 million licensed seats and 71,000 customers worldwide.
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Siemens Digital Industries Software works collaboratively with
companies to deliver open solutions that help them turn more ideas into successful products. For
more information on Siemens Digital Industries Software products and services, visit
www.siemens.com/plm.
This software and related documentation are proprietary and confidential to Siemens.
© 2020 Siemens. A list of relevant Siemens trademarks is available. Other trademarks belong to
their respective owners.