MATLAB

Owned by Wesley Chatham
Last updated: Jun 02, 2023 by Veran Flavour
2 min read

The University of Waterloo has obtained an expanded campus license for MATLAB until August 31, 2022. All faculty, researchers, students, and staff are eligible to download and install MATLAB on their personally-owned computers, university-issued computers, or use MATLAB Online in a web browser. Please note that commercial use of MathWorks products is not covered by our Campus-Wide License; if you are using a commercial license, please continue to do so. 

 

Start using MATLAB

  • Go to the University of Waterloo’s MATLAB Portal.

  • Click "Sign in to get started"

  • Click "Create an account"

  • Enter your details. Your email address should be your university email address.

  • Click "Create"

Once your account is set up, you will be linked to our MATLAB license and will be able to:

  • Download and activate software on your personal computer. 

  • Start using MATLAB Online from a Web browser without installing anything.

 

Download and activate MATLAB on your computer

  • Sign into MathWorks

  • Click Download Installer and on the next page, click Download for Windows.

  • Once the installer has been downloaded, click and open the downloaded .exe file.

  • The installer will immediately begin unpackaging. Once it has been installed, enter your userid@uwaterloo.ca and Mathworks account password (hopefully NOT your Watiam password).

  • Read and Accept the Terms of the license agreement.

  • View the information on the ensuing pages and click Next if they are correct. Choice of the installation folder and other options such as adding a shortcut to the desktop are also available.

  • Click the green Begin Install button and wait for installation to complete.

  • Run MATLAB.

 

Renew an existing license

Current MATLAB users - renew your MATLAB license as follows:

  • Open MATLAB (If the license has already expired the activation client will launch and you can skip the next step)

  • Windows: Navigate to Help Menu (Click down arrow button) and select Licensing 

  • Linux or Mac: Click on Resources, Navigate to Help Menu (Click down arrow button) and select Licensing 

  • Click on Activate Software

  • Choose to Activate using Internet

  • Once reactivated you will need to restart MATLAB before the new license file is recognized

  • If the installation has already expired, you will be prompted to activate when attempting to launch MATLAB. As long as the activation finishes successfully it will roll over to the new license file once the old one expires. You might continue to see the expiration warning in MATLAB until the old file expires.

Video instructions from MathWorks

Text instructions from MathWorks

 

Where can I learn more?

  • Access free, self-paced training to get started in less than 2 hours: MATLAB Onramp. 

  • If you have trouble installing MATLAB, go to the MATLAB Portal and click 'Need Installation Help' to get support. 

  • MathWorks has a comprehensive Knowledge Base for other help articles:

 

Issues or concerns? Contact the Science Computing Helpdesk.