Downloading Ferret for Windows XP

PLEASE NOTE! An alternative for running Ferret under Windows: We have had good successes running Ferret under the (free) Virtual Box virtualization environment. Install Virtual Box and then intstall one of the available free and well supported Unix platforms such as Ubuntu. This gives you an environment where you can install and run a Ferret executable for Linux. It also means you can run the latest Ferret releases rather than the old versions available for Windows. See the WINDOWS README file for more details.

Ferret v5.51

NOTE: Ferret on the Windows platform requires the Cygwin library for creating graphics windows. There is not a recent version of Cygwin available. Building Ferret under Windows has been on hold until there is a Cygwin update or other developments that allow us to build Ferret on Windows platforms.

Installation Instructions

- Installation and update guide

Environment and Executable files

These are files that are required for Ferret installation.

- Ferret Executables
- Ferret Datasets
  - Some of the data files within this collection are not absolutely required for Ferret installation. See the Installation and update guide for guidance.

Documentation

- On-line Ferret Web Pages

Miscellaneous Datasets

Previous Versions

Release History

Note:

In order to run Ferret on win32 platforms, it is necessary to have an X Window emulation program installed. The following win32 X Window servers are known to work with Ferret. This does not imply any kind of endorsement for the software listed below, but is a starting place to find an X emulation package.

- Xming -- free, open source, works with XP and Vista
  http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/
- MicroImages -- very low price and reportedly quite adequate
  http://www.microimages.com/downloads/mix/index.htm
- cygwin-- free software reported to work well with Ferret. http://www.cygwin.com A user's tip is that you must initialize startx. (Here is a message from the Users' List with some suggestions on setting up cygwin: http://www.ferret.noaa.gov/Ferret/Mail_Archives/fu_2004/msg00592.html)
- X-Win32 by Starnet
  This item reported about its use: In the Security tab of X-Config, you have to add you own computer as host and check the Use XAuth checkbox. (Put another way, you have to authorize your own computer to display on itself!) This may be necessary only for computers that are behind a firewall. http://www.starnet.com

Other known win32 X servers:

> http://lab-pro.com/

> Please let us know at oar.pmel.contact_ferret@noaa.gov if you have tested these or other X-servers with Ferret.