The process of getting HALion 6 installed has three stages:
- Download everything
- Extract the installation files
- Install the application and content
N.B. you can already download and prepare the installation files without first buying the license via the
Steinberg Download Assistant
Before you start the download process, click the Settings icon in the top right and select where you want to save to, which can be e.g. an external drive, or other drive where you have lots of space. These are just the installation files in a compressed archive, and for Windows there is one executable and 13 files with a .rar extension – a multi-part, self-extracting WinRAR compressed archive. Be sure to wait until the download has finished completely, i.e. the status bar goes green and the Actions button says Open.
Once you have downloaded all of the files successfully, click the Open button to go to the download location, and then run the first file (for Windows, this is called Halion_6_win.part01.exe), which is a program to extract the content from the .rar files and allows you place them in any location you choose. When you start the the program, you see the following message:
Welcome to HALion 6
In the next step, the installer and content files are extracted to a location on your system.
Due to the space requirements of the content files, the default location specified below might prove too small.
You can click “Browse” to select a different location.
After the installation is complete, you can delete the extracted installer and content files.
In my case I plugged in a USB drive which got the drive letter T: so I chose "T:" as the destination. Even though the status bar says “Installation progress”, it is not actually installing anything, it is simply extracting the actual installation files to the chosen destination.
Extracting files to T:\HALion6 folder
Extracting from Halion_6_win.part02.rar
Extracting from Halion_6_win.part03.rar
Extracting from Halion_6_win.part04.rar
[…]
Extracting from Halion_6_win.part13.rar
Extracting from Halion_6_win.part14.rar
Once extraction has completed, the actual installation program will start, but you can select Cancel at this point if you don’t wish to proceed.
These are the actual installation files and the downloaded files are no longer required.
So, one batch of files is the download (~28GB), one batch of files is created from the download when you run the extractor, and at this point no space needs to have been used on the C: drive at all (except for the Download Assistant, which is small).
To proceed with the installation, click Next, accept the EULA, and click Next again. At this point you must be careful to make the correct choices! You must select each of the items listed on the left in order to be able to make adjustments on the right. In my case, I am upgrading from HALion 5 so my answers are:
HALion 6 – Will be installed; I accept the defaults and the required disk space on C: is 564MB
HALion Sonic 3 – Will be installed; I accept the defaults and the required disk space on C: is 520MB
HALion Sonic 3 Content – Will be installed; only requires 20KB
HALion Sonic 2 Content – Already installed
Generic Lower Latency ASIO Driver 64bit – Will be installed
HALion Library Manager – Will be installed; only requires 11MB
Impulse Responses – Will be updated
HALion 5 Content – Will be updated
The final option is the checkbox at the lower left – “Install for anyone who uses this computer (all users)” – checked!
Once you’re happy, you can then go ahead and install everything, but bear in mind that this WILL replace an already existing HALion 5. If you want to revert, you will either have to restore a previous drive image backup (you did make one before you began, didn’t you?) or uninstall HALion 6 and reinstall HALion 5. Time for a coffee …
When the installation process is complete, you can run the new Library Manager even before you purchase your license. You will see the various component parts of the HALion library, and you can move then to your chosen location; BUT there is no option regarding where to initially install them, so you get everything on C: at first. This means you must have at least 30GB free on C: before you begin the installation process. I did already have my H5 content moved to another drive, and I noticed the H6 installer respected this, so it added/updated there instead of installing everything on the C: drive. It may be different if you’re doing a clean install – I don’t know, perhaps someone in that position can add this information.