Can you have both 32 bit and 64 bit MATLAB installed?

Hi,

I would like to have both 32 bit and 64 bit MATLAB installed on my Windows machine.

Some of my code require mex and I only have a 32 bit Fortran compiler hence the need to have 32 bit MATLAB. However, my machine has 12 gb of RAM and I would like to utilize it for my other code.

Is it possible to have both installed on my machine?

Answer 1

[Kaustubha Govind]

Yes, it is possible to have both 32- and 64-bit MATLAB installed on the same Windows machine.

[Walter Roberson]

Though if I recall correctly from previous Answers to this question, the two share a preferences file including the mex options file, so if you needed to mex for both architectures you would have to reset the options each time you switch.

[Arnaud Miege]

Walter is correct. Remember to run mex -setup every time you switch from one to the other.

[Jan]

I had to install the 32 bit Matlab folder in a path, which does not contain parentheses - on Windows 7 the standard folder "C\Program Files (86)" caused problems. I have a folder "C:\ProgramFiles" for such cases, which does not have a spcae inside also.

I solve the Mex setup problem using a function CompileMex instead, which checks the environment dynamically and sets the the mexopts file manually, e.g. "-f mexopts_MSVC2010_32.bat". I create these option files by "mex -setup" at first and rename the file accordingly afterwards.

Answer 2

[Han Geerligs]

Hi all,

I just received a solution from TMW:

A workaround would be to create a startup.m file in which you set the compiler automatically. The code in that startup.m file can look like this:

if strcmp(mexext,'mexw64')
   mex('-setup:msvc100free');
else
  mex('-setup:lcc');
end

In that way, at MATLAB startup it is checked if it’s the 32bit MATLAB or 64bit MATLAB and the compiler is selected automatically in the background. So no user interaction is needed.

In addition, I will create an enhancement request for that feature.

[Kaustubha Govind]

Great! Thanks for posting this, Han!

Answer 3

[James Tursa]

Yes, I believe so based on comments posted on the newsgroup by others. I don't currently have this setup myself.