FoamWin 14: Graph partitioners and cfMesh

FoamWin now includes the graph partitioners and the cfMesh mesher.

• Partitioners. Scotch and METIS work with decomposePar. PT-Scotch and Zoltan handle parallel redistribution and load balancing under Microsoft MPI. They are built from Scotch 7.0.12 and Zoltan 3.90 (OpenFOAM ThirdParty-14) and METIS 5.2.1 with GKlib (KarypisLab). Their license texts are in runtime-licenses.
• On-demand loading. Any optional partitioner library now loads on demand. Windows never loads a DLL whose only use is static registration, so previously only some methods could be selected.
• cfMesh. Includes cartesianMesh, tetMesh, pMesh, cartesian2DMesh, generateBoundaryLayers, improveMeshQuality and the surface utilities. It is built from the open-source cfMesh-OpenFOAM13 fork with patches for OpenFOAM 14 and MinGW, which are in patches/cfmesh, and ships with its OpenMP runtime.
• Tests. Adds of14-cfmesh-test.ps1 with the cfMeshBox example. scripts/test-windows-partitioners.ps1 now also covers PT-Scotch and Zoltan.
• Build. Build scripts for the PT-Scotch and Zoltan cross-builds and for cfMesh. The import check now follows the launcher's library search order for each MPI backend.

Validated on Windows from the portable ZIP:

• All 176 executables pass -help, and import checks pass with both the serial and MS-MPI backends.
• Scotch and METIS decompose the cavity into four parts.
• PT-Scotch and Zoltan redistribute it on four MPI processes. PT-Scotch finds the minimal 2×2 split.
• cfMesh cartesianMesh (with two boundary layers), tetMesh and pMesh mesh the included cube, and each passes checkMesh.
• The cavity runs through icoFoam serially and on four MPI processes, parallel snappyHexMesh passes, and the native runtime workflow passes.

The installer is built from the same staged files but was not installed during this validation.

cfMesh reads STL patches without a type as empty, as OpenFOAM does. Set their type with a renameBoundary entry in meshDict, as the example does. ParaView and CAD/Python dependencies remain separate.

Download the installer or portable ZIP and verify SHA256SUMS.txt. Microsoft MPI is optional for serial work and required for parallel execution.

FoamWin 14: Runtime registration and clean rebuild

FoamWin now rebuilds cleanly from the repository, and the package gains the legacy solvers and several libraries that earlier builds left out.

• Restored 91 source files that differ from another file only in case. A commit made from a Windows checkout had overwritten them, and the tree no longer built.
• build-all.sh builds the libraries with upstream src/Allwmake (twice, for Windows link order) and the applications with upstream applications/Allwmake. It fails if any library the packages need is missing.
• Added the legacy solvers, including icoFoam, which the bundled smoke test runs but earlier packages did not contain (151 executables total, up from 91).
• Added the forces, rigid-body and six-DoF motion, propeller-disk, solid-particle, specie-transfer, and solver and utility function-object libraries.
• The stack-trace helper is now a static library linked into libOpenFOAM.dll. The legacy liblagrangianFunctionObjects is skipped on Windows because its name clashes with libLagrangianFunctionObjects.
• Corrected Windows runtime registration for recovered solver modules, coupled temperature and film patches, and wall-function fields in mesh utilities. Also corrected the condenser tutorial's library name, and normalized executable, mapFields and function-object output paths.

Validated on Windows from the portable ZIP. All 151 executables pass -help, and import checks pass with both the serial and MS-MPI backends. The cavity case runs through icoFoam serially and on four MPI processes with reconstructPar. Parallel snappyHexMesh with mesh reconstruction runs on two processes. The native runtime workflow passes (surfaceFeatures, foamRun, foamPostProcess, foamToVTK). The installer is built from the same staged files but was not installed during this validation.

Real Scotch, PT-Scotch, METIS and Zoltan partitioners are not included: the package ships the dummy decomposition libraries, as before. cfMesh, ParaView and CAD/Python dependencies remain separate optional components.

Download the installer or portable ZIP and verify SHA256SUMS.txt. Microsoft MPI is optional for serial work and required for parallel execution.

FoamWin 14: Native application engine support

FoamWin now supplies the additional OpenFOAM utilities needed by an attached CFD workbench on native Windows.

• Added surfaceFeatures, foamPostProcess, foamToVTK and its export library (91 executables total).
• Added of14-env.ps1: JSON environment, required-tool inventory, library inventory, case-path normalization and Microsoft MPI discovery.
• Added of14-runtime-test.ps1 and public synthetic fixtures for surface extraction, foamRun solving, mag(U) post-processing and VTK export.
• Fixed explicit MinGW library dependencies for VTK export.
• Added the native-engine attachment guide in docs/NATIVE-ENGINE.md.

Validated on Windows: complete runtime workflow, 12 cube feature edges, 400-cell velocity output, VTK export, modern foamRun on four MPI processes, all 91 executable help checks and dependency checks with both MPI backends. The JSON handshake successfully launched a child executable using only the exported runtime environment, including a case path with spaces. Unrelated environment secrets are not exported.

This release provides the OpenFOAM engine. The graphical application must implement/use a native Windows host adapter: Linux Bash environment capture and POSIX process-group cancellation do not work unchanged. Stokes code and private project data are not included. cfMesh, Gmsh generation, ParaView and CAD/Python dependencies remain separate optional components.

Download the installer or portable ZIP and verify SHA256SUMS.txt. Microsoft MPI is optional for serial work and required for parallel execution.

FoamWin 14: MPI parallel meshing and solving

FoamWin now supports optional Microsoft MPI for local parallel meshing and solving.

• Adds decomposePar, reconstructPar, redistributePar, and the MS-MPI Pstream backend.
• Prompts to open Microsoft's runtime download page when MPI is missing; serial mode remains available.
• Adds four-process cavity and snappyHexMesh smoke tests, including reconstruction and mesh quality checks.
• Tested on Windows with two and four processes. All 88 executable help checks and both backend dependency checks pass.
• The installer payload passed four-process meshing and cavity tests from a path containing spaces.

Install Microsoft's msmpisetup.exe runtime, reopen FoamWin, then run of14-smoke-test.ps1 -Processes 4 or of14-mesh-test.ps1 -Processes 4 from the package directory. blockMesh remains serial; snappyHexMesh and compatible solvers can run in parallel. Scotch/Metis partitioners and multi-host operation are not validated.

Assets include the native installer, portable ZIP, and SHA-256 checksums. Microsoft MPI is downloaded separately from Microsoft's official page.

FoamWin 14 for Windows — Initial Release

FoamWin 14 for Windows — Initial Release

Native 64-bit Windows serial build of Foundation OpenFOAM 14 using MinGW-w64 and
the blueCFD-derived Windows compatibility layer.

Included

• Guided installer and portable ZIP.
• Native PowerShell launcher and Desktop/Start Menu shortcuts.
• Required compiler/runtime and stack-trace DLLs with license notices.
• A cavity example and a smoke-test script.
• Fixes for Windows DLL filename collisions, constructor initialization order,
  installation paths with spaces, shell startup, and installer registration.

Validation

All 85 executable startup checks passed. Mesh validation and legacy icoFoam and
modern foamRun cavity simulations completed on Windows. The installed package and
actual Desktop shortcut were tested. The updated installer also passed an approved
installation test, including shortcut working directory and uninstaller registration.

Limitations

Serial only, double precision, 32-bit labels. ParaView is installed separately.
Runtime code compilation requires additional compiler setup. A full clean rebuild
and exhaustive validation of every physical model were not performed.

Release assets

• OF14-win-setup.exe
• OF14-win.zip