Guide: Getting Xilinx ISE to work with Windows 8 / Windows 10 (64-bit) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2014, 07:37:57 pm
content: 10/8/15: This guide will also work for Windows 10 64-bitI recently scored a Spartan 3E Starter Board on eBay. So, thinking I was on to a winner as I used this board during my time at uni, I downloaded and installed Xilinx ISE WebPACK.But the problem is, it barely works in 64-bit mode on Windows 8The license manager and Project Navigator both just close when you try to open a file and PlanAhead only works in 32-bit mode.Xilinx ISE does not officially support Windows 8 and it probably never will as Xilinx are focused on their new suite - Vivado. However, Vivado only works with 7 series devices and upwards, so no Spartan 3 or Spartan 6 FPGAs!But all is not lost, here is how you can get ISE (64-bit) working on Windows 8.Fixing Project Navigator, iMPACT and License ManagerNote: I am assuming you are using ISE 14.7 and have installed it to the default locationOpen the following directory: C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\ISE\lib\nt64Find and rename libPortability.dll to libPortability.dll.origMake a copy of libPortabilityNOSH.dll (copy and paste it to the same directory) and rename it libPortability.dllCopy libPortabilityNOSH.dll again, but this time navigate to C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\common\lib\nt64 and paste it thereIn C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\common\lib\nt64 Find and rename libPortability.dll to libPortability.dll.origRename libPortabilityNOSH.dll to libPortability.dllFixing PlanAhead not opening from 64-bit Project NavigatorPlanAhead will not open when you are running 64-bit Project Navigator (e.g. for I/O Pin Planning), it just displays the splash screen but never opens.To fix it, we have to force PlanAhead to always run in 32-bit mode.Open C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\PlanAhead\bin and rename rdiArgs.bat to rdiArgs.bat.origDownload the attached zip fileExtract it. You should now have a file named rdiArgs.batCopy the new rdiArgs.bat file to C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\PlanAhead\binNow you should have a working ISE Design Suite on Windows 8 64-bitHope this helps!

author: Dongulus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2014, 08:29:08 pm
content: I've never had anything but trouble when installing ISE. I've encountered these same problems in the past before I downgraded from Win8 to Win7 (probably one of the reasons I downgraded). I've had trouble again just last month with ISE 14.5 on Win7 where I can't get anything to load. I wonder if the failure here is a similar problem with the DLLs.Instead of really looking into it, I just deleted all of the files (because the uninstall wouldn't even come up) and I downloaded the massive ISE files again. Now, I can't even get the install executable to run because it keeps crashing. So frustrating.At least I have a version of ISE working on another machine.

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2014, 09:55:47 pm
content: Quote from: Dongulus on July 14, 2014, 08:29:08 pmISE is a bit of a beastIt could have been that the download didn't totally finish, I had that problem before.I'd suggest you download 14.7 in the split files (4 files of about 2GB), then you extract the first one (Xilinx_ISE_DS_14.7_1015_1-1.tar) and run the setup from inside there. It then asks you where the other 3 files are and checks their integrity. Takes a bit longer, but I have had more success that way.

author: Dongulus
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2014, 10:59:11 pm
content: Quote from: Newbzors on July 14, 2014, 09:55:47 pmThanks for the tip, I'll give it a try. At least if it doesn't work, I don't have to download 6 GB to find out.

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2014, 07:02:53 pm
content: Quote from: Dongulus on July 14, 2014, 08:29:08 pmFor the record, Xilinx has been pretty blunt about how ISE is not supported on Windows 8, and will never be supported on anything newer than Windows 7. ISE is officially deprecated, which of course is ridiculous because Vivado supports only Series 7 devices, and those of us still happily using Spartan 3AN and Spartan 6 and Virtex 4 see no reason to use Artix or whatever. Oh, that the smallest Artix devices are not available at all through distribution makes migrating to them rather impossible.QuoteFor what it's worth, I have 14.7 working well in Windows 7-64, both on a Dell machine and in a VMWare VM on two Macs running 10.9.4.

author: bingo600
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2014, 09:08:31 pm
content: @NewbzorsNice detective workI'm running ISE 14.7 on Linux Mint-17 x64 (Ununtu 14.4 based)And my biggest challenge was to get PACE to work for CPLD's.I just installed Quartus II 13.0sp1 (later ones (13.1+) doesn't support a lot of the older chips).That installed quite easy in Mint-17 , but only until i had to use modelsimNow i'd say Quartus & ISE are even in "linux magic to get them to function"/Bingo

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2014, 09:16:38 pm
content: Quote from: Bassman59 on July 15, 2014, 07:02:53 pmAgreed. I see no reason why they can't support Spartan devices in Vivado, they are still popular devices. If they don't do that, they could at least patch ISE for Windows 8, it wouldn't be hard for them as it 99% works.Quote from: bingo600 on July 15, 2014, 09:08:31 pmCould you run Windows 7 in a virtual machine (VirtualBox for example)? My laptop is a Mac, so for ISE I am using my Windows 7 virtual machine and it seems to run quite nicely.

author: bingo600
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2014, 08:38:27 pm
content: Quote from: Newbzors on July 15, 2014, 09:16:38 pmI could but won't ....After installing ISE for the 2'nd time on Linux (14.4 and no1 14.7), and having made notes of the process.It's just 15min extra to get to work perfect , and no hazzle with usb access in Vbox or getting a win7.Actually i think both programs run fine on a x64 Mint17 now./Bingo

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2014, 07:25:10 pm
content: Quote from: bingo600 on July 16, 2014, 08:38:27 pmThat's pretty cool, any tips for Linux users? True about VirtualBox, I had problems with usb before. VMWare seems to be much better in that respect.

author: Ultimation
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 20, 2015, 04:05:43 pm
content: Having to use ISE and planahead for university currently, this just saved me a lot of effort of having to get a windows 7 install.Thank you.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2015, 06:55:19 pm
content: Not Windows 8 but...I got Xilinx to send me a disc with the last install, and I was getting a lot of errors installing in Widows 7 professional 64 bits from the DVD.I had to copy the DVD to the hard drive and install from there. I think the problem is that it times out when unzipping the files directly from the DVD drive.At least it was nice of them to send me the DVD just for the asking

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2015, 07:27:36 pm
content: Quote from: Ultimation on February 20, 2015, 04:05:43 pmSorry, long time replying! Glad it helped. I too used it at uni (although comp sci, I did a module on FPGAs) and at the time I had to give up with win 8 and used 7. Good job I only use windows in a virtual machine on my mac or I would have been annoyed having to reinstall!Quote from: miguelvp on February 20, 2015, 06:55:19 pmThat's pretty cool. I didn't know they send out discs, might even request one myself. Is there a form to fill or something?

author: alfianabdi
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 01, 2015, 03:31:42 pm
content: hi thank you, i have the same problem with ise and plan ahead, and it's solved by using your method,the problem then other tools like platform studio has the same issue, i suspect other tools has similar problemcould you please help me to solve that as well?

author: tec5c
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2015, 09:21:33 am
content: Well, like others I too am using ISE for a University class and wanted to install it on my home PC for practice with a demo board I have. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I ended up here (home sweet home) to find the solution.Something I would like to add though. I recently upgraded to windows 10 on my surface pro 3 and of course, I experienced the same problems with ISE that windows 8 users were having.I can confirm that the steps from the OP fixed these problems.Though, I haven't tested everything for windows 10, at least now I can add a source to my project without ISE crashing.Thanks BytesGuy

author: BytesGuy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 10, 2015, 10:04:31 am
content: Quote from: tec5c on August 10, 2015, 09:21:33 amNo problem! Glad I could helpFunny, I was just going to try this on Windows 10 today, so thanks for the feedback. It's a shame Xilinx doesn't support the older Spartans in their fancy new IDE, but where there's a will, there's a way

author: jmag999
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 26, 2016, 07:49:04 pm
content: I don't know how you figured this out, but thanks so much. I was starting to think I might need to drop back to Windows 7 for some legacy code I needed to update.

author: Eric_the_EE
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2016, 03:45:40 pm
content: I know this post is old, but I recently ran into the same problem.Here is another fix:

author: Divvi
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: March 01, 2016, 07:14:49 pm
content: Thanks for the fix. Original post worked will on Windows 10 64bit in a VM.

author: clauswk
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 18, 2017, 08:04:12 pm
content: Thank you.Saved my day.Indeed Xilinx should figure out how to support the smaller FPGAs without this kind of hassle.Wonder how you figured it outClaus

author: bikerglen
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 18, 2017, 09:19:57 pm
content: There’s a virtualized version of ISE 14.7 for Spartan 6 FPGAs for Windows 10 downloadable on the Xilinx website now:https://forums.xilinx.com/t5/Xcell-Daily-Blog/Spartan-6-development-Windows-10-Upgrade-to-ISE-14-7-for-Spartan/ba-p/780272I haven’t tried it though.

author: wjk3722
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 24, 2018, 02:09:11 am
content: It helps me a lot. Thanks for you sharing.

author: fahadbinkhalidpk
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 18, 2018, 10:57:02 am
content: Quote from: alfianabdi on June 01, 2015, 03:31:42 pmI am facing the same issue with Platform Studio. Please anyone help.

author: ozgdrbs
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 13, 2019, 12:31:30 pm
content: Did you solve Xilinx Platform Studio problem ? I have a problem . When I click xilinx platform studio, xpsgui stops running. Please help me.

author: Game-Tech.US
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: June 01, 2021, 07:37:20 pm
content: I recently had a failed start up of ISE14.7 via VM after only what 4 months of not using it...Tried a few things but ran across this on the main site when searching ise14.7:https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx14_7/ug1227-ise-vm-windows10.pdfPage 5 I seen:Known Issues.............The ISE Virtual Machine Does Not Have Internet Access Enabledby DefaultYou can give Internet access to the ISE VM by upgrading the networking configuration. SeeEnabling Full Networking in Chapter 6 for details.Click link to page 20 near bottom to see how to fix this known issue.Once i did that it worked again!

author: Ali80.ycm
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 09, 2022, 06:55:55 am
content: Very very very helpful.Good luck!

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2023, 06:46:43 pm
content: PSA: There seem to be two new issues in newer versions of W10.During installation, it hangs around 92% when checking Webtalk. What worked for me, was to terminate webtalk32.dll (under the ISE setup app in Task Manager), wait a moment, then terminate webtalk.dll. Setup ends seemingly successfully at that pointAnd ISE is broken again in Windows 10, but luckily someone smarter than me figured out is was due to an interaction with the "fake" WSL network shares causing problems to the network shares enumeration. The fix is either to remove WSL (not an option for me) or patch a filehttps://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=95891&sid=7526ed0d6748614255e95d07bf38ce0b#p95891User czietz patched libPortabilityNOSH.dll to always fail network shares enumeration and provided a fixed file (renamed to libPortability.dll, to solve the Smartheap problem already mentioned). I copied the patched files into both locations C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\ISE\lib\nt64 and C:\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\common\lib\nt64 and everything seems to work fineDownloading a binary from a random forum is usually risky, but the patch is limited to a few bytes0001AB30: BB 8B0001AB31: 60 F80001AB32: 09 BB0001AB33: 00 600001AB34: 00 090001AB35: 48 000001AB36: 8B 000001AB37: CB 480001AB39: F9 CB0: 8b f8 mov edi,eax2: bb 60 09 00 00 mov ebx,0x9607: 48 cb rex.W retfAnd if I interpreted the binary correctly, it simply returns early from a call, so pretty safeCopying the file here, just in case. Hope it's ok with the original author

author: suudy
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 01, 2024, 12:05:15 am
content: Sorry to resurrect this old thread. We are working through the forced Windows 11 installs we are getting on new PC's at work now, and I've found this while digging on how to get ISE to work.Quote from: robca on March 11, 2023, 06:46:43 pmThis does appear to work. But I'm not sure about the explanation below.Quote from: robca on March 11, 2023, 06:46:43 pmThe above disassembly doesn't seem quite right.First, here's the disassembly, based on defuse.ca's online disassembler, of the original libPortabilityNOSH.dll at offset 0x1ab30:0: 8b f8 mov edi,eax2: bb 60 09 00 00 mov ebx,0x9607: 48 8b cb mov rcx,rbxa: e8 45 04 05 00 call 0x50454And here's the disassembly based on the attached DLL file:0: bb 60 09 00 00 mov ebx,0x9605: 48 8b cb mov rcx,rbx8: 8b f9 mov edi,ecxa: e8 45 04 05 00 call 0x50454f: 48 8b f0 mov rsi,raxNote that the call is a rel32 (32-bit offset). But the point here is that it doesn't return from the function early. It only changes the registers before calling whatever is at 0x50454.The only difference here is that edi gets loaded with edx, rather than eax. Assuming the Microsoft x64 calling convention (this is a 64-bit DLL), the arguments are pushed RCX, RDX, R8, R9. RAX is non-volatile and is whatever is in the caller's state.I'm not sure what this does, or how it does it. But it doesn't appear to return early.

author: suudy
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 06, 2024, 12:49:52 am
content: Ok, I've done some work and have a new version of the DLL that I think makes sense. And importantly, *it works!*I ran the existing libportabilityNOSH.dll through Ghidra and decompiled things. The previous patch appears to bypass the code after a call to WNetOpenEnumA by manipulating the return value. This isn't clean, and seems to mess with arguments to the function immediately afterward (call to "new").So, where the original patch did it's work was at file offset 0x1ab30. Based on the DLL headers, this maps to a load address offset of 0x1000, and the .text section starts at file offset 0x400. This means the address of the patched code is at a virtual offset of 0x1b730. A disassembly/decompiling of the code yields:18001b729 8b ca MOV ECX,EDX18001b72b e8 2a 04 CALL MPR.DLL::WNetOpenEnumA DWORD WNetOpenEnumA(DWORD dwScop05 0018001b730 8b f8 MOV EDI,EAX18001b732 bb 60 09 MOV EBX,0x96000 0018001b737 48 8b cb MOV RCX,RBX18001b73a e8 45 04 CALL MSVCR90.DLL::operator_new void * operator_new(__uint64 par05 00Note that the patch modified the code *after* the call to WNetOpenEnumA. But it did so in an odd way. The return value from WNetOpenEnumA is in EAX. The original code saves this in EDI, then sets up a call to "new". Here's what original patch does:18001b729 8b ca MOV ECX,EDX18001b72b e8 2a 04 CALL MPR.DLL::WNetOpenEnumA DWORD WNetOpenEnumA(DWORD dwScop05 0018001b730 bb 60 09 MOV EBX,0x96000 0018001b735 48 8b cb MOV RCX,RBX18001b738 8b f9 MOV EDI,ECX18001b73a e8 45 04 CALL MSVCR90.DLL::operator_new void * operator_new(__uint64 par05 00This effectively only tweaks the return value of WNetOpenEnumA. That is, it fails to store the return value of WNetOpenEnumA into the local stack frame, leading to the later checks to fail, bypassing much of the code. This works, but does not completely bypass the function call.Instead, I have proposed the following 4 byte patch which does what was suggested in the earlier email. This patch returns earlier from the function, and fixes the checksum of the DLL. Here's the change:18001b700 c3 RET18001b701 90 NOPThat's it! And it works.So, there are only 4 bytes in the entire file to change:00000151 D1 5400000152 0D 4B0001AB01 40 C30001AB02 53 90Attached is a bsdiff patch file. Seethis linkfor details on how to apply it to libPortabilityNOSH.dll.libPortabilityNOSH-patch.zip(0.34 kB - downloaded 372 times.)

author: auxym
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 25, 2024, 05:28:56 pm
content: Thanks @suudy for that patch! Is it for the 32 bit (in the nt folder) or the 64 bit (in the nt64) version of libPortability?Edit: reason is ask is because I am using LabVIEW FPGA, which appears to be loading the 32 bit version (based on what Process Explorer tells me), even on W11.

author: glenenglish
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2024, 09:34:26 pm
content: For using 23 year old FPGA devices,I would suggest run something like Windows XP in a virtual machine, and run ISE on that.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2024, 11:09:41 pm
content: FYI - I tried with this copy batch (it is not a patch, it only copies the existing ISE14.7 files from A to B).https://github.com/cbureriu/xilinx-14.7-patch-for-Win10-32-64/tree/masterand I can build my old Win7 s6 and v6 projects in Win10 no problem (both ise and planahead).

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2024, 11:31:17 pm
content: Works fine on Linux otherwise.

author: auxym
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 29, 2024, 01:14:59 pm
content: I work in academia, I asked for a win 7 VM and they won't even allow that, security concerns and everything(Don't tell them I'm executing patched DLLs downloaded from internet forums)

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 30, 2024, 03:20:17 am
content: Quote from: auxym on July 29, 2024, 01:14:59 pmDamn. Tell them that it's all ok because you're going to use Crowdstrike.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2025, 03:37:12 pm
content: Can we run this damn old tool on win 11 too? since many customers still use spartan 6 and I need the ISE

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 08:55:41 am
content: Hi,I want to know if it's possible to install ISE14.7 on win 11 using windows WSL? is it possible? has anyone tried it, since Today I heard about WSL and I'm a total noob.

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 04:52:50 pm
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on March 20, 2025, 08:55:41 amISE is a Windows app. WSL is used to run Linux apps under Windows, so completely useless in this caseISE 14.7 works in Windows 10, as long as you follow the information here and use the modified DLLs

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 10:08:09 pm
content: Quote from: robca on March 20, 2025, 04:52:50 pmISE is also available as a native linux app (suite would be a better term), but was targeted at specific linux versions so can be a bit a work to get it running on something newer.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 10:33:08 pm
content: ISE can be used on Linux too, But I do not know if there are limitations on that too, has any one have experience on WSL or Linux installation, so can guide us to try it, if it can be done, it would solve a huge problem.

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 11:21:52 pm
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on March 20, 2025, 10:33:08 pmIt would not solve any "huge problem", mostly because there are no huge problems in the Windows version.On the other hand, the Linux version requires quite a few steps to install, plus a few manual fixeshttps://gist.github.com/aliemo/ce58ea570ee6ffa6dedfa569f87f1c1e?permalink_comment_id=5040735. That even before figuring out if you properly configured WSL for graphical operations, and the necessary hardware drivers (which are always a problem under WSL emulation)If you have a Windows machine, use the Windows version and follow the easy fixes described here to make it work. It works just fine

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2025, 11:41:20 pm
content: The dynamic libraries fixes are annoying but pretty common for closed-source Linux software. I have to do it also for Lattice Diamond & Radiant on Linux. Once that's done, the tools works fine, exactly as on Windows (for me at least). The only thing is that GUI font size may be a bit too small or too large, it'll rarely match that of your desktop environment, small annoyances like this. But that's minor.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2025, 08:20:48 am
content: QuoteIs there any workaround win 11? I could not install it on win 11

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2025, 05:04:42 pm
content: If you describe the steps you tried and the errors you get, someone might be able to help. Windows 11 is pretty much just like Windows 10 for the most part, so the Windows 10 workarounds should work on 11 as well

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2025, 10:33:56 pm
content: I tried to install it on win 11 and During installation, it hangs around 92% when checking Webtalk.Then I tried to end webtalk32 in task manager, like this hint by the useresQuoteBut it hangs again and it would not go any further.

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2025, 11:19:55 pm
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on March 21, 2025, 10:33:56 pmYep, that was my postDid you terminate both webtalk32.dll, then after a few seconds terminate webtalk.dll?Where does it hang for you? 92% or later?

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2025, 08:22:18 pm
content: Quote from: robca on March 21, 2025, 11:19:55 pmJust for my own knowledge, I downloaded the standard ISE 14.7 ISE for Windows 7/XP/Server Full Installer on my Windows 11 machine. After decompressing it, I launched setup as Administrator, and as per before when it stopped responding I killed webtalk32 and webtalk.exe (possibly even xwebtalk.exe) with Task Manager. After killing all instances of webtalk, the installation continued (VCredist, drivers) and got stuck again, this time on xilperl. Deleting xilperl completes the installation, but it's unclear if it works after that (I didn't have my Spartan board to test it)So, it looks as if Win 11 is causing more problems than Windows 10.You can try thishttps://gist.github.com/islandcontroller/80f701cb84003408dfc3beecbc5207c1?OkHoR=ezTCjAbbut, probably, the best approach is to use the ISE 14.7 Win10 edition, which is simply a VM with Windows 7 and preinstalled ISE, running in a virtual environment in Windows 11

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2025, 10:05:14 pm
content: QuoteAnother method would be asking linux and WSL experts in here how to do it in WSL in win11, since running a virtual machine has it's own limitation and crashes too!

author: robca
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2025, 04:46:42 pm
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on March 23, 2025, 10:05:14 pmWSL is a virtual machine, too (lightweight, but still a VM). VMs are used everywhere in production, including servers running the Internet infrastructure. AMD supports the VM installation of ISE 14.7, but does not support ISE 14.7 on Windows or WSLSo, if you want a reliable, supported option, use what AMD recommends: the VM install