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Install Understand

First download Understand and create an account — the latest build is always at licensing.scitools.com/download (supported OS versions are listed under supported languages & platforms) — then pick your platform below. After installing, enter your license. Installing on a network with no internet? See Install & run Understand fully offline.

Understand ships on Windows as an installer (.exe). It installs to %PROGRAMFILES64% by default, requires administrator rights, and can add itself to PATH.

Interactive install

Run the downloaded Understand-<version>-Windows-64bit.exe and follow the prompts, then enter your license.

Silent / unattended install (for network / mass deployment)

Run the installer with /S for a silent install. Optionally set the install directory with /D= (it must be the last argument and may contain spaces, unquoted):

Understand-<version>-Windows-64bit.exe /S /D=C:\Extra Tools\SciTools

Then license it non-interactively (see command-line licensing):

scitools\bin\pc-win64\und -setlicensecode XXXXXXXXXX

Note

The CLI-only and Granite kits ship as ZIP archives instead of an installer (extract and use directly).

Understand ships on macOS as a .dmg and is a Universal binary (Apple Silicon and Intel).

Install

  1. Download the .dmg from licensing.scitools.com/download and wait for the download to finish completely.
  2. Double-click the .dmg. A window opens showing Understand and the Applications folder.
  3. Drag Understand onto Applications (this copies all the needed files).
  4. Launch it from Applications, then enter your license when prompted.

Gatekeeper: "can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer"

If macOS blocks the first launch, right-click the app and choose Open, then confirm.

This is macOS Gatekeeper. Understand is a signed application, but it loads some libraries from outside the app bundle, which Gatekeeper can mis-flag on first run. Opening it once via right-click → Open clears the warning for subsequent launches.

No CLI-only kit on macOS

The command-line-only kit is offered on Windows and Linux; on macOS the und CLI ships inside the app bundle (Understand.app/Contents/MacOS).

Understand ships on Linux as a .tgz tarball (there is no installer). It is an x86_64 (amd64) build — it does not run on ARM Linux (including ARM VMs on Apple Silicon).

1. Extract and run

tar -xvzf Understand-<version>-Linux-64bit.tgz
cd scitools/bin/linux64
./understand

The tarball extracts to a scitools/ folder; the GUI executable is scitools/bin/linux64/understand (the CLI tools und, uperl, upython live alongside it).

2. Install required system libraries

Depending on your distribution you may need these (install with your package manager):

libxcb-xinerama0, libxkbcommon-x11-0, openssl (1.1.1+), libxcb-shape0, libxcb-cursor0, libpcre2-16-0. Wayland-default systems also need the libxcb-* set (libxcb-util1, libxcb-icccm4, libxcb-image0, libxcb1, libxcb-keysyms1, libxcb-render-util0). Some users also need curl and ca-certificates.

On RHEL/Rocky 8.6+ install via sudo yum: xcb-util-wm, xcb-util-image, xcb-util-keysyms, xcb-util-renderutil, xcb-util-cursor.

Understand still won't start? Find the missing library

QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1 ./understand
The output names the package(s) Understand needs. See also Understand won't start.

3. (Optional) Add to PATH and license

Add scitools/bin/linux64 to each user's PATH. Then enter your license, or from the CLI: und -setlicensecode <CODE>.

You can create projects, analyze, and generate reports/metrics with the und CLI (command reference) — no GUI required. Understand offers a CLI-only kit on Windows and Linux. For a worked example, see Headless workflow — create, analyze, check, report.

Graphs still need X11

Report/metric generation works headless, but generating graphs (GUI or API) requires X11 libraries on the machine, because images are rendered via X11. If drawing over a remote display is slow, see Slow drawing over X11 / remote display.

Install the CLI on Linux

Copy the CLI kit's link from licensing.scitools.com/download, then:

wget <build-url>/Understand-CLI-<version>-Linux-64bit.tgz
tar -xvzf Understand-CLI-<version>-Linux-64bit.tgz
# executables: scitools/bin/linux64/{und,uperl,upython,userver,uvalid}

License it, then verify by launching und interactive mode:

scitools/bin/linux64/und -setlicensecode XXXXXXXXXX
scitools/bin/linux64/und            # interactive; confirms a valid license

See licensing from the command line and the und licensing reference for offline/node-lock/server options.

Docker

An official image is published on Docker Hub:

docker run -it --rm scientifictoolworks/understand:latest

The image is built from the Linux CLI tarball on an Ubuntu base (with gcc, libglib2.0-0, libgssapi-krb5-2, and a UTF-8 locale for Qt). You still supply a license (env var or code).

WSL

To run the Docker image under Windows, use WSL 2 and configure Docker to use the WSL 2 backend. Give WSL enough memory for analysis — e.g. in %UserProfile%\.wslconfig:

[wsl2]
memory = 12GB