How to: Uninstall Ansys Products & Shutting Down License Manager

December 6, 2022 Dan Dart

Instructions for a Complete Uninstall of Ansys Products and Shutting Down the License Manager

The first step to success is to make sure to install Ansys Versions Chronologically! Sometimes you just need to uninstall old versions and reinstall the new. The most important tip is that Ansys requires an uninstall and re-install if you installed older versions on top of newer. Check the below notice in the ANSYS 2022R2 Installation Guide

Important Notice

If you want to run multiple releases of Ansys, you MUST install them chronologically (for example., Release 2022 R1 followed by Release 2022 R2). If you install an earlier release after installing Release 2022 R2, you will encounter licensing issues that may prevent you from running any products/releases. If you need to install an earlier release after you have already installed Release 2022 R2, you MUST uninstall Release 2022 R2, then re-install the releases in order.

This was true in older versions.

Important Notice

If you want to run multiple releases of Ansys software, you MUST install them chronologically. If you need to install an earlier release after you have already installed Release 2021 R2, you MUST uninstall Release 2021 R2, then re-install the releases in order.

These uninstall directions are written first for FEA/CFD repairs using the Ansys directory, whereas Electronic Desktop tools are found in the “AnsysEM”  directory.

  1. Uninstall all Ansys software from the computer. 

  2. Open CMD prompt - right click run CMD as administrator (NOTE: This step is primarily for when you are running the license server locally, in fact you may not be.)

  3. Go to in the CMD Prompt and copy and paste the following: (Include CD and the quotes)

    1. For Structural:  CD "C:\Program Files\Ansys Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64\”

    2. For Electronics Desktop:  CD "C:\Program Files\Ansys Inc\Shared Files\Licensing\winx64\”

  4. Once in the winx64 directory for either Mechanical or Electromagnetics folder

  5. Then copy and paste the following commands to stop the license server services:

    1. ansysli_server -k stop

    2. ansysli_server" -k uninstall

    3. sc stop ANSYSLicensingTomcat

    4. sc delete ANSYSLicensingTomcat

  6. Then in Windows Explorer, type %AppData% in the path field. You will be in the Roaming directory. Delete the Ansys folder, then go up a level and down to the Local directory and delete that Ansys folder too. Finally, if there are any Ansys folders under C:\Program Files, delete those as well.

  7. After uninstalling all ANSYS, manually use regedit to delete:
    * HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ANSYS
    * HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ANSYS, Inc.
    * HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ANSYS, Inc.

  8. Now, Restart your computer and Reinstall. You will need to turn off the anti-virus/security software on your system during the installation.  Often this is a requirement for a successful installation.  Your IT department may need to be notified as often these systems are controlled by the IT administration at your company.  You may also need to temporarily disable the firewall while running the installation. 

  9. Extract the installation download (7-zip preferred) and locate setup.exe in that folder and right click and "Run as administrator" to run the installation.

Additional locations to delete files:

Remove the left-over files/directories below:

  • In the example below “v212” » varies by version
  • The below snap shot shows 4 subfolders for 5 versions of Ansys Installs V202, V211, V212, V221, and also EKM which is Electronics Desktop

Remove these folders to delete settings for each version installed.

  •     C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\v212
  •     %appdata%\Ansys\v212
  •     %localappdata%\Ansys\212
  •     %temp%\.ansys

To Shutdown the License Server either on a Standalone or Client-Host Configuration

For Windows License Server:

You can STOP License Management Center from the Browser GUI or go to Task Manager > Details tab > kill/end task ansysli_server, ansysli_monitor, lmgrd, ansyslmd, tomcat processes

Once that is done, open an Admin command prompt and issue these commands to uninstall the ANSYS License Manager and Tomcat services:

  • "%ansyslic_dir%\winx64\ansysli_server" -k uninstall
  • sc stop "ANSYSLicensingTomcat"
  • sc delete "ANSYSLicensingTomcat"

To Uninstall the License Manager, Delete the Ansys Inc folder

For Linux License Server:

You can run stop_ansysli script with root/elevated privileges under <install_path>/ansys_inc/shared_files/licensing to stop the License Manager processes: ansysli_server, ansysli_monitor, lmgrd, ansyslmd

Also, you have to kill the tomcat process that might be running in the background.

Try this command to see what Process ID (PID) is being used by tomcat process and then kill it:

  • ps -ef | grep -i tomcat
  • kill -9 <process ID displayed from above command for tomcat>

To Uninstall the License Manager, Delete the ansys_inc folder

About the Author

Dan Dart

Senior Support Engineer

Follow on Linkedin More Content by Dan Dart
Previous Article
Checking Your System for Ansys Compatibility
Checking Your System for Ansys Compatibility

This is an end-to-end article on how to check and optimize your computer system for running Ansys simulatio...

Next Flipbook
Ansys Software Installation Guide
Ansys Software Installation Guide