Install on Windows
Install from the Microsoft Store, launch the application for the first time, and choose a design mode.
SolarLayout Desktop is a Windows application, installed from the Microsoft Store. That is the route these pages document: open the Store on the application's listing, install it, launch it. Everything after that happens on your own machine.
If you are not sure whether your PC has the Store, start at the download page, solarlayout.app/downloads/solarlayout. It asks one question about your PC and takes you to the right place.
Installation does not need access. The application opens, and every tab, field and menu is there to look at. Generating a layout and every export are the things that need it, so activation is the step that follows this page.
What the Store gives you
The Store is not only a download page. It changes three things that matter on a managed or corporate PC:
| What it means for you | |
|---|---|
| Microsoft signs the package | The copy you install is the one the publisher submitted, verified by Microsoft rather than by you. |
| Microsoft hosts and delivers it | Nothing is fetched from a third-party download site, and there is no installer to run and answer questions in. |
| Store applications are exempt from SmartScreen warnings | You will not see the "unrecognised app" prompt that Windows raises for downloaded installers, so there is nothing to click past. |
Updates come the same way — Microsoft delivers them. See Updates and reinstalling.
The publisher
The listing is published by Rensaar. Check the publisher name on the listing page before you install. It is the one thing on the page that tells you you are looking at the right application rather than a similarly named one.
System requirements
| Requirement | What is needed |
|---|---|
| Windows version | Windows 10 version 1809 or later, or Windows 11 |
| Architecture | 64-bit (x64). A 32-bit or Arm machine cannot run it |
The Store enforces both, so a machine below that floor is not offered the application at all — you will see no Get button rather than a failed install.
Beyond that, what matters is the screen rather than the processor:
- A display wide enough to show the input tabs and the plot side by side. The window is built around that arrangement — the stage tabs of settings on the left, the plant drawing on the right — and a narrow screen makes both cramped. A wide or high-resolution monitor is worth more here than a fast processor.
- An internet connection only for weather data and elevation data. Both are optional, and both are used only when you ask for them. Layout generation, drawing, editing and every export run without a connection.
Large plants ask more of the machine than small ones, and enabling cable calculation is the slowest step on a large or complex layout. Nothing else in the application is sensitive to the hardware in the same way.
Find the listing
The download page's Get it from the Microsoft Store button opens the Store on the listing directly. Or open the Store yourself and search:
Open the Microsoft Store
It is installed on every supported Windows PC. Press Start, type Microsoft Store, and open it.
Search for the application by name
Type the application name into the Store's search box. Nothing else is needed — no product code, no redemption link.
Check the publisher reads Rensaar
The publisher name sits under the application name on the listing page, alongside the install button.
Install it
Click Get or Install. The Store downloads and installs the application; there are no options to choose and no components to select.
When it finishes, the button on the listing changes to Open.
Launch it
Use Open on the listing, or find the application in the Start menu — press Start and type the first few letters of its name.
The first launch
The application does not open straight into the main window. The SolarLayout · New design window appears first, and you answer two questions before anything else happens. It appears at every launch, not only the first.
Two segmented controls — MOUNTING (Fixed tilt or Single-axis tracker) and INVERTER (String inverter or Central inverter) — with a summary card that names the combination and shows its equipment chain, from the modules through the mounting and the inverter to the control room. MMS is the module mounting structure; SMB is a string monitoring box; ICR is an inverter control room. The choice decides which input cards you are shown and how the plant is put together, so it is a design decision rather than a preference — Choosing a design mode covers which to pick. Click Continue.
If you chose wrongly, you do not need to restart: the design chip in the ribbon, or File ▸ Move to String / Central Window…, opens a second window for a different design.
The main window then opens. Across the top runs the navy ribbon, with the design chip, the access chip and the Docs and Support buttons — on a fresh install the access chip gives way to a gold Get Free Access button, so you can activate without opening a menu. Down the left sits the pinned Generate Layout button over the five stage tabs — Site · Array · Electrical · Yield · Tools; on the right, the view tabs — Layout · Summary · Energy · BOM · SLD — over an empty plot; and the application version is shown at the right of the status bar at the bottom of the window. See The main window for what each part of it is.
What to do next
Generate Layout opens the License / Subscription window instead of generating until this device has active access — and so does every export. Everything else — loading a boundary file, reading and changing every input, opening the menus, the SLD and BOM views — works without it. Activate the device before you plan to design anything.
Activation happens online, once per device, and there is no licence file at any point — nothing to request, receive, load or keep safe. Open Help ▸ License / Subscription… and click Get Free Access; the same button sits in the ribbon where the access chip will be. Your browser opens on the activation page for this device. Finish there, switch back, and the window confirms it by itself.