Installation locations for extensions

By default, extensions are installed to a general user-writable location for your operating system.

You can override the default location by defining a path with the IBM_SPSS_MODELER_EXTENSION_PATH environment variable. The specified location must exist on the target computer. After you set IBM_SPSS_MODELER_EXTENSION_PATH, you must restart IBM® SPSS® Modeler for the changes to take effect.

To create an environment variable on Windows, from the Control Panel:

Windows 7

  1. Select User Accounts.
  2. Select Change my environment variables.
  3. Click New, enter the name of the environment variable (for instance, IBM_SPSS_MODELER_EXTENSION_PATH) in the Variable name field and enter the path or paths in the Variable value field.

Windows 8 or Later

  1. Select System.
  2. Select the Advanced tab and click Environment Variables. The Advanced tab is accessed from Advanced system settings.
  3. In the User variables section, click New, enter the name of the environment variable (for instance, IBM_SPSS_MODELER_EXTENSION_PATH) in the Variable name field and enter the path or paths in the Variable value field.
Important: For users of Windows 7 and later versions of Windows, installing an updated version of an existing extension bundle might require running IBM SPSS Modeler with administrator privileges. You can start IBM SPSS Modeler with administrator privileges by right-clicking the icon for IBM SPSS Modeler and choosing Run as administrator. In particular, if you receive an error message that states that one or more extension bundles could not be installed, then try running with administrator privileges.

Running streams in batch mode that contain extensions

To use Custom Dialog Builder extensions with Modeler Batch:
  1. In Modeler Client, use Custom Dialog Builder to create and install your custom node. The extension node files will be in the following directory, by default:
    • Windows: C:\ProgramData\IBM\SPSS\Modeler\<version>\CDB\
    • Mac: /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/IBM/SPSS/Modeler/<version>/CDB/
  2. Copy the CDB directory to the Modeler Batch machine.
  3. Export the environment variable IBM_SPSS_MODELER_EXTENSION_PATH to the new directory. You can now run the stream in batch mode.