HFSS has a messed up screen, with icons and panels all in the wrong place.

If you look at the attached screen shot, you will see my HFSS session is a bit of a mess. I can't seem to sort it out, irrespecitive of what I try to move. I assume the setting must be in some config file somewhere. Does anyone know what I might be able to safely delete, so getting the screen back to normal?

Hello Debora

Goodness Gracious , i have had my share of problems with the toolbars,never got it fixed directly. i guess we sometimes get carried away and get too adventurous. This is how i got it fixed i am sure you will get responses.Uninstall the program and reinstall it after deleting all your files from the computer.that should get it fixed,which sounds kinda lame but it did work for me as last option.

P.S. and your last two posts made me think as well. never looked at things from that perspective.Good!

Regards
Sajid Mohammed.

rotmanlens said:

Hello Debora

Click to expand...

Hello Sajid

rotmanlens said:

Goodness Gracious , i have had my share of problems with the toolbars,never got it fixed directly. i guess we sometimes get carried away and get too adventurous.

Click to expand...

It sure was a mess, but I've no idea how it got in the mess. I don't recall trying to change anything at that particular time.

rotmanlens said:

This is how i got it fixed i am sure you will get responses.Uninstall the program and reinstall it after deleting all your files from the computer.that should get it fixed,which sounds kinda lame but it did work for me as last option.

Click to expand...

That's what I did, though I actually just reinstalled Windows from a recent backup, as I knew that would cure the problem. I'd already tried to find a configuration file used by HFSS without success, so wondered if it wrote the configuration to the registry. I know from checking before that removing HFSS does not remove all the registry entries, so I decided to reinstall Windows. That does not take long from a recent backup.

rotmanlens said:

P.S. and your last two posts made me think as well. never looked at things from that perspective.Good!

Regards
Sajid Mohammed.

Click to expand...

I made a few recently - not sure what ones you mean.

Thanks for your help. It would be good if we could find out where the configuration details are kept, so we could delete one file or a few registry entries, rather than a complete reinstall.

Go to Tools -> Customize and in the window that pops up, click the Reset button. This will reset all the buttons to default settings. Also, all of this data is saved as registries in Windows (which are pretty easy to find via regedit, but rarely do I have a reason to go to the registry as all options are in the tool) , so if you want to modify it is best to use this method as it has the same effect as re-installing without having to re-install.

Have Fun

Thank you tallface

Regards
chachito

tallface65 said:

Go to Tools -> Customize and in the window that pops up, click the Reset button. This will reset all the buttons to default settings. Also, all of this data is saved as registries in Windows (which are pretty easy to find via regedit, but rarely do I have a reason to go to the registry as all options are in the tool) , so if you want to modify it is best to use this method as it has the same effect as re-installing without having to re-install.
Have Fun

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Tools -> Customize resets the items on the toolbar, but it does not reset all of HFSS back to the defaults. If I close the Project Manager, Messenger Window, Progress Window, Properties Window etc, then they remain closed, even after running Tools -> Customize and pressing Reset.

Since Tools -> Customize does not show them, I somewhat doubt it would have cured the problem I had, when all the Windows were in bizare locations. Note in particular where my Project Manager was - to the right of centre, not on the left as is normal. My problem was not limited to a few buttons on the toolbar being in the wrong place.

As such, unless there's a configuration file, it seems the only option is to edit the registry, which is fine if you know what you are doing. But I was just as likely to screw my HFSS installatiuon up, so reinstalling was probably not a bad idea. It just so happened I had a very recent backup of the Windows disk, so reinstalling that was quite easy.

HFSS has some annoying querks!

Deborah,

No problem.. I was under impression that issue was due to to toolbar buttons, not windows. Nonetheless, the way to set HFSS to full default without re-installing is still simple as long as one is comfortable in regedit. Simply go to Start -> Run -> regedit. If Windows7, then just type 'regedit' into the entry bar once the Start menu is open. Once in regedit, go to hkey_current_user -> software -> Ansoft -> HFSS and delete the folder associated with the version that is being used actively. HFSS automatically repopulates the registry upon opening after this folder is deleted rather than looking to them for current values (as they do not exist). HFSS will act as if it was just installed and ALL registry keys will be reset to defaults including window locations.

HFSS has no more annoying quirks than any other code

Have fun and dont be hostile to HFSS for 'quirks' HFSS is a valuable code as any other when the details are figured out... I just simply offer my experience to minimize time involved to figure things out by users on this forum.

Have Fun

tallface65 said:

Deborah,

No problem.. I was under impression that issue was due to to toolbar buttons, not windows. Nonetheless, the way to set HFSS to full default without re-installing is still simple as long as one is comfortable in regedit. Simply go to Start -> Run -> regedit. If Windows7, then just type 'regedit' into the entry bar once the Start menu is open. Once in regedit, go to hkey_current_user -> software -> Ansoft -> HFSS and delete the folder associated with the version that is being used actively. HFSS automatically repopulates the registry upon opening after this folder is deleted rather than looking to them for current values (as they do not exist). HFSS will act as if it was just installed and ALL registry keys will be reset to defaults including window locations.

Click to expand...

Really IMHO there should be a way of setting a program back to defaults without editing the registry directly. IMHO, that's not a good idea. What happens if someone uses HFSS without admin rights? In that case, I doubt they could edit the registry.

tallface65 said:

HFSS has no more annoying quirks than any other code

Have fun and dont be hostile to HFSS for 'quirks' HFSS is a valuable code as any other when the details are figured out... I just simply offer my experience to minimize time involved to figure things out by users on this forum.

Have Fun

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your help.

I do have a problem using HFSS though. I don't trust the results from it. That's not because I think there's a bug in HFSS, but because all too often I wonder if HFSS is interpreting my model in the way I intend it to do. It's often very difficult to tell by looking at the model exactly how HFSS will interpret something. As the model gets bigger and more complex, with more materials inside other materials, I get less confident that I have made no error.

I feel the need to verify the results with two different packages, just so I can be reasonably confident I've entered the model correctly.

Of course, all non-trivial software has bugs, but I think at this point user error is far more likely to lead to incorrect results than a bug in the program.

Deborah