Install and first launch

Where the installer comes from and what it puts on the station, the commissioning window the first launch opens, the data folder everything is written into, why closing the window does not stop the station, and why no cloud is needed: what stays on the computer and what leaves it only when you turn it on.

Install

Download the installer from the downloads page and run it. The installation guide shows the notices the browser and Windows may show on the way, and the button to press in each one. It installs per user under your local application data, needs no administrator rights, bundles the .NET runtime it needs and adds a Start Menu entry, "Ganter Lab". The Microsoft Store lists the same installer. Updates come from the app itself: with automatic updates off (the default) a waiting release is one quiet mark on the status bar and is installed from Settings, Updates when you decide; with them on, a release downloads in the background and installs on the next restart.

First launch

1. Review before this station starts. The first launch opens a commissioning window before anything else runs. Read the Terms of Use and the Desktop Privacy Policy (Read Terms, Read Desktop Privacy Policy), tick both statements and press Accept and start Ganter Lab. Exit closes the app without recording anything, and the window returns on the next launch. The accepted versions are shown later under About and Legal.
2. The window. It opens centred, sized to at most 95 % of the screen's working area, and never smaller than 880 by 520 pixels. From then on it reopens where you left it (position, size, maximized); a saved position that lands on no screen, or a size the screen cannot hold, is brought back inside.
3. The data folder. Everything the station owns lives under %AppData%\GanterLab: the configuration database (config.db), the run history index (history-index.db), the event journal (events.db), and the acquisitions, backups, assets, reports, logs and crash folders. What must not follow a Windows user, the station identity and the Ganter account session, lives under %ProgramData%\GanterLab. The environment variable GANTERLAB_DATA_ROOT relocates the whole set for a separate profile; the machine part then lives under it as machine. Uninstalling Ganter Lab removes the program and keeps the station: the configuration, runs, events, acquisitions, backups, reports and logs in %AppData%\GanterLab, and the station identity and account session in %ProgramData%\GanterLab, stay on the computer, and a later install opens the same station. To remove everything, delete those two folders after uninstalling.
4. An empty station. No devices, no dashboards, no local users: the Users page offers to create the primary administrator (see Users), and until someone signs in the "Not signed in" role is in force, which on a fresh station may do everything except manage users. The embedded OPC UA server starts and the status bar reads "Connector: online". The free-mode countdown starts too (see Free mode and the license).
5. Where to begin. The station opens on Welcome, the first entry of the rail: a trail through every area of the program, each explained on the page with a drawing of it at work, playing by itself until you take a step. A stop of an area the station builds wears a check once the station holds something there. Don't show again takes the page off the rail, and the station then opens on View.

A start that cannot finish (a database that will not open, a runtime that will not start) says so in a native notice, "Ganter Lab could not start" or "Ganter Lab could not finish starting", with the reason and the log folder, and then closes. A second copy started over the same data folder never races the first: it asks the running one to show its window and exits.

Always on

Closing the window does not stop the station. The X hides the window to the notification area while the embedded server, acquisition and any recording keep working; the first time, a small window of the app's own tells you so and offers Exit now instead. The tray icon mirrors the Connector's health, a left click brings the window back, and the right-click menu holds Open Ganter Lab, a read-only status line and Exit. Exit is the one way to stop the runtime, and it asks first while a recording runs. The behaviour is a switch, "Keep running in the background when closed", beside "Start with Windows" under Settings, Startup; with it off, the X exits. All of it is described under The window.

Without a cloud

Ganter Lab needs no cloud service to run. The drivers, Logic, the dashboards, Process and its recordings, and the embedded servers all run on the station, and the configuration, runs and events stay in the data folder described above. Free mode needs neither a Ganter account nor an internet connection, and a license keeps working offline: a subscription's license holds for 90 days after the station last reached the Ganter server, and a perpetual license needs no contact at all once the station has activated it (see Free mode and the license).

An installed station reaches the Ganter site on its own for one thing only, the update check: when it starts and every four hours, it sends its version, its update channel and the type of processor and operating system, and the site keeps neither the IP address nor anything that identifies the station (see Updates). Everything else leaves the computer only when you turn it on: