Installation
Last updated
Last updated
Please ensure you understand The 3di licence before installing the 3di software.
Since 2021, the 3di is compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11, in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants.
To get started, you will need a copy of the installer.
The installer has a filename like 3di5_uk_230122_setup.exe. This filename includes the version number 230122 of the software in yymmdd format, that is year month day. Sometimes you will see a single-letter suffix x which denotes a sub revision.
You will receive a copy of the installer prior to your training course. To find the installer, open the Windows Start menu and type '3di5_uk'. If the installer file is present on your machine, a file name ending in 'setup.exe' will appear in the list. If you cannot find the installer, please get in touch for a new copy.
The installation steps depend on which version of the 3di you are trying to install. Please consult the version number of the installer you are trying to run, then choose the relevant instructions:
If you are in an institutional setting where an IT department manages your computer, your IT support team should read the additional instructions below.
Prerequisite: you need Microsoft Office 2016 or newer installed. Specifically, you need the Word and Access components of Office to be installed. The latest Office 365 (now rebranded Microsoft 365) is compatible with the 3di and installs both Word and Access by default. 32-bit or 64-bit Office variants are both fine. The following Office versions are also compatible: 2016, 2019, 2021.
Run the 3di installer.
You will be asked if you trust the installer file. Say Yes.
You will need to agree to the licence.
Choose the installation folder. The default is your desktop, which is fine for most users.
Click the Install button.
The 3di installer will run to completion and you can click the Close button.
Once the installer has completed, launch the 3di by double-clicking the 3di5_run shortcut on your desktop.
The first time you run the 3di you will have to tell Access that you trust the software. These steps only need to be performed once.
Click OK if you see an error saying that active content is blocked.
If the following dialog appears, click on Stop all macros.
On the yellow bar near the top of the window, click Enable content.
If you have navigated the above warnings correctly, you should now see the Main menu window with 'no backend' loaded.
Continue to Confirming the 3di is working.
These 3di versions require the 32-bit version of Microsoft Office to be installed – the other option being the 64-bit version. If you have purchased Microsoft Office, you will be entitled to install the version in either 'bitness'. Microsoft will normally provide you the 64-bit version unless you choose otherwise. In normal usage there is no visible difference between the two versions. However it does affect compatibility with certain software such as the 3di.
To be precise, these 3di versions require only the Word and Access components of Office to be installed. The latest 32-bit Office 365 (now rebranded Microsoft 365) is compatible with the 3di and installs both Word and Access by default. The following 32-bit Office versions are also compatible: 2016, 2019, 2021.
With Office 365 you can determine whether you have the 32-bit or 64-bit version currently installed according to the instructions here.
If you have the 64-bit version of Office installed, you will need to uninstall it and replace it with the 32-bit version. This is best performed by IT support if you have access to such assistance. The general steps are as follows:
In the case of Microsoft 365 (the latest version of Office), log in to office.com.
Navigate to your Microsoft account page.
Click the Install button.
This should offer you a choice of versions. Choose the 32-bit option and download the installer.
Open Start menu → Add or remove programs, choose Microsoft 365 and Uninstall.
Run the new Microsoft 365 installer you just downloaded.
Before you proceed, verify that Microsoft Access is installed. You can do this by opening the Start menu and typing 'Access'. If Access is installed it will appear at the top of the list:
If Access is not installed, you will have to install it before you proceed, or the 3di will not work. The freely-available Microsoft Access Runtime will also serve. Contact your technical support before proceeding.
With the correct Word and Access version installed, you are ready to begin.
Run the 3di installer.
You will be asked if you trust the installer file. Say Yes.
You will need to agree to the licence.
Choose the installation folder. The default is your desktop, which is fine for most users.
Click the Install button.
The 3di installer will run to completion and you can click the Close button.
Once the installer has completed, launch the 3di by double-clicking the 3di5_run shortcut on your desktop.
The first time you run the 3di you will have to tell Access that you trust the software. These steps only need to be performed once.
Click OK if you see an error saying that active content is blocked.
If the following dialog appears, click on Stop all macros.
On the yellow bar near the top of the window, click Enable content.
If you have navigated the above warnings correctly, you should now see the Main menu window with 'no backend' loaded.
Continue to Confirming the 3di is working.
These versions of the 3di require the 32-bit version of Microsoft Office to be installed -- the other option being the 64-bit version. If you have purchased Microsoft Office, you will be entitled to install the version in either 'bitness'. Microsoft will normally provide you the 64-bit version unless you choose otherwise. In normal usage there is no visible difference between the two versions. However it does affect compatibility with certain software such as the 3di.
To be precise, these 3di versions require only the Word component of Office to be installed. Preferably you would have the Access component of Office installed too, but if you don't, 3di setup will install the Access Runtime which is freely provided by Microsoft to run Access applications. The latest 32-bit Office 365 (now rebranded Microsoft 365) is compatible with the 3di and installs both Word and Access by default. The following 32-bit Office versions are also compatible: 2016, 2019, 2021.
With Office 365 you can determine whether you have the 32-bit or 64-bit version currently installed according to the instructions here.
If you have the 64-bit version of Office installed, you will need to uninstall it and replace it with the 32-bit version. This is best performed by IT support if you have access to such assistance. The general steps are as follows:
In the case of Microsoft 365 (the latest version of Office), log in to office.com.
Navigate to your Microsoft account page.
Click the Install button.
This should offer you a choice of versions. Choose the 32-bit option and download the installer.
Open Start menu → Add or remove programs, choose Microsoft 365 and Uninstall.
Run the new Microsoft 365 installer you just downloaded.
With the correct Office version installed, you are ready to begin.
Take note of whether Microsoft Access is already installed. You can do this by opening the Start menu and typing 'Access'. If Access is installed it will appear at the top of the list:
Run the 3di installer.
You will be asked if you trust the installer file. Say Yes.
You will need to agree to the licence.
Choose the installation folder. The default is your desktop, which is fine for most users.
Click the Install button.
A new window will appear, asking if you want to install the Microsoft Access Runtime. The Access Runtime is a package freely provided by Microsoft so that applications written in Access (a less famous component of the Office suite) can still be run on machines which don't have the full paid version of Access. Recall from the prior instructions whether Access is installed on your machine:
If Access is already installed, click Cancel and exit from this Access Runtime installer window.
If Access is not already installed, continue to install the Access Runtime. This will allow you to run the 3di even though you do not have a full copy of Access installed. When the Runtime installer is complete, the window will close and you will return to the 3di installer.
The 3di installer will run to completion and you can click the Close button.
Once the installer has completed, launch the 3di by double-clicking the 3di5_run shortcut on your desktop.
The first time you run the 3di you will have to tell Access that you trust the software. These steps only need to be performed once.
Click OK if you see an error saying that active content is blocked.
If the following dialog appears, click on Stop all macros.
On the yellow bar near the top of the window, click Enable content.
If you have navigated the above warnings correctly, you should now see the Main menu window with 'no backend' loaded.
Continue to Confirming the 3di is working.
Open the 3di and navigate to the purple Main menu.
Click Select and open backend.
Choose Training5 with a double-click.
Open the Case Manager by clicking the 🙂 button on the Add-ins ribbon.
Choose any child from the Find: dropdown at the top of the form.
Click the button Report ASD_brief. Within a minute this should produce a Word document. The document may open in the background. If you can't see it, check the taskbar at the bottom of your screen.
Verify that the 3di interview forms will open properly:
Choose Sally Pringle from the Find: dropdown at the top of the Case Manager.
Click on the button Revisit interview on the salmon-coloured central portion of the form.
Opening the interview can take 30 seconds or so on a slower machine, so ignore any early messages about "Access not responding". If an interview form doesn't appear in under two minutes, this may indicate a problem with your Access installation and you should contact support.
Close the 3di by clicking the ❌ at the top-right of the application window -- clicking Close 3di5 on the purple Main Menu leaves you in Access, which is unhelpful!
These instructions apply if your computer is managed by someone other than the clinician who will be using the software.
You may find that your computer has administrative policies applied which mean you, the clinician, do not have permission to install the 3di or other software. If this is the case for your computer, please show these instructions to your IT department.
The rest of this section assumes that you are an IT administrator with the necessary powers to install software on the target machine.
If the clinician's machine is a regular Windows installation with their software and documents stored locally on the hard disk (not on a network share), then installation should be very straightforward. Log in to the machine as an administrator, or elevate the session the clinician was running in, then follow the instructions in the appropriate section above according to your 3di installer version.
The frontend file and backends folder must both be writeable by whichever Windows account the clinician uses to run the software and administer assessments.
The 3di is written in Microsoft Access. As with many Access applications, the 3di is split between two .mdb files, the so-called frontend and backend. The frontend is the part the user double-clicks to load in Access, and contains all of the code. The backend stores patient records. One frontend can switch between multiple backends. During the training course, trainees use the Training5 backend which contains sample data. After that they will create their own backend, and likely never think about backends again, since a backend can store any number of patient records. The usual reason to switch backends is to transfer data between machines or allow collaboration in a research setting.
It is possible but often troublesome to store the frontend or backend on a network share: the 3di is subject to the rules and quirks of Access, and you are at the mercy of Microsoft's documentation to resolve any problems.
After a fresh install, the 3di installation folder looks like this:
The default 3di install location is the user's Desktop folder. This is usually the best choice although anywhere the user has write access is fine (so not in C:\Program Files). The user needs to be able to find the 3di5_run shortcut which the installer places on the Desktop. This shortcut simply points to the frontend .mdb file and must be adjusted if you move the frontend after installation.
It is most simple and reliable to keep the whole folder intact. However it is also possible to have the frontend on one drive and backends on another. This might be desirable when patient data must live on a designated drive separate from where programs are installed. To achieve this, move everything except the frontend .mdb file to the other drive, then from the 3di Main menu click Select and open backend and navigate to the new Backends location.
It is essential that all the subfolders of the root installation folder (Backends, Resources etc.) are kept together in the same location relative to one another, or the software will not work.
Placing the 3di folder on a cloud storage service such as OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive is untested and may cause intermittent problems.
The installation folder is under 100 MB when new. Each new case created by the user typically adds under 1 MB to the Backends folder, including generated reports.
When running from a network share:
A slow or erratic connection to the share will result in a poor user experience.
You will need to tell Access that the frontend file can be trusted via the Access Trust Center. You must tick an additional checkbox to allow network locations to be trusted.
Backends must not be accessed by multiple copies of the 3di running concurrently. This will cause errors and possible data loss. Therefore in a networked setup you must make sure this is impossible.
If you configure the 3di to store its backend on a network drive but that drive isn't available (for example if it depends on a VPN service that hasn't started), the 3di will prompt the user to create a new backend on a local drive. Users may not understand what is going on, and end up being unable to find patient records.
After installation, you should go through the steps in Confirming the 3di is working to ensure the clinician has a smooth experience when they first launch the 3di. Hitting a problem in the first clinical session is bad news!
If the machine has Access installed as part of Office, rather than the free Access Runtime, you can perform an additional step to make the 3di easier to use:
With the 3di open, click File → Options → Customize ribbon.
In the right-hand pane, deselect every Office tab apart from Add-ins. This ensures that only the 3di toolbar is displayed, and hides toolbars that are irrelevant.
Click OK to exit. Restarting is not necessary, despite the message which pops up.
It is not possible simply to copy the 3di installation folder to another computer and expect it to work. This is because the 3di installer setup.exe installs dependencies at the system level.
The installer can be run silently (for example as part of a script for use with SCCM or other software deployment tools) and with the installation path set from the command line using the /S and /D switches respectively. The installer is built using NSIS, therefore the standard NSIS flags are available as documented in section 3.2.1 here.
Oldest versions of the 3di require the 32-bit version of Word. 32-bit Access will be used if present, but the installer will unconditionally attempt to install the free 32-bit Access Runtime redistributable. This can be cancelled if not required, and the 3di setup will continue.
190109e is the first version of the 3di where the installer does not include the bundled Access Runtime installer. The Runtime can still be downloaded from Microsoft and installed separately. The user's machine requires 32-bit Word, and either 32-bit Access or the 32-bit free Access Runtime to be installed.
210110 and any newer version is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit variants of Office. The user's machine requires Word, and either Access or the free Access Runtime to be installed.
