Installing

This page walks through the installation from the moment you double-click the setup until the program is ready to start. It covers what the installer asks you, what it puts on disk, and the two questions that come up most often: what happens to an OBS Studio you already have, and what happens if the licence key does not work. Administrators who need the unattended-installation switches will find those here too.

Before you start

Operating system	Windows 10 version 1803 or newer, or Windows 11, 64-bit
Rights	Administrator, for the duration of the setup
Disk	Around 700 MB, most of it the engine
Internet	Needed the first time: the setup fetches the engine (about 180 MB)
Close first	Any other application built on the OBS engine, including OBS Studio itself

That last point is not a formality. Two OBS-based applications running at the same time write over each other’s configuration. The setup checks for this and stops with an explanation rather than causing the damage.

What the setup does

1. Checks the machine. Is an OBS-based application running? Is Windows new enough? If not, it stops before touching anything.
2. Fetches the engine. The pinned engine version is downloaded and unpacked into its own folder. If it is already there in the right version, this step is skipped — a second run over an existing installation takes seconds.
3. Pins it. The engine is renamed, its updater is removed and automatic updates are switched off. It cannot update itself, so a broadcast can never be broken by an update that arrived overnight.
4. Installs the program next to it, together with the marker files that tell it to take over the interface.
5. Asks for your licence key (see below).
6. Asks which modules to install, and which of those to switch on straight away.
7. Creates the launcher and shortcuts, and grants write access to the configuration folder.

The licence key

The setup shows a page where you type the key from your account page. With the key it asks the website which modules belong to your account and offers exactly those.

You may leave it empty. Then you get only what was supplied with the installer itself, and nothing else changes.

If the key fails — mistyped, no internet, withdrawn — you get a message and the installation continues with what was included. An installation is never allowed to strand on a licence server, so this is a warning, not a failure.

Choosing modules

The module page lists everything available to you, with two checkboxes per module:

[x] Atem control                       1 MB
    [x] Activate now

The top box installs the module. The one beneath it switches it on immediately. Installing without activating is a valid choice: the module is on disk, and you can switch it on later under Settings → Modules without running the setup again.

The second checkbox depends on the first — a module you do not install cannot be activated by accident.

What ends up on disk

C:Program FilesUltimate Playout
  UltimatePlayout.exe        <- the launcher you start
  Modules                   <- the modules you chose
  engine
    bin obs-plugins data  <- the pinned engine and the program itself
    config                  <- your settings, scenes and logs

Two things are worth knowing about that layout:

• engineconfig holds your configuration, and it is writable by everyone who logs in on that machine. On a control-room PC with changing volunteers that is exactly right — everyone finds the same setup. On a workstation where people expect personal settings, it is not.
• Your own documents live elsewhere. Cue lists, exports and songs go to your Documents folder, not into Program Files. See The first start.

Your existing OBS Studio

An OBS Studio you installed yourself is not touched at any point. Not renamed, not reconfigured, not upgraded, not downgraded. It keeps its own settings, its own scenes and its own updates, and the two live side by side.

The one rule is that you do not run them at the same time. Start the other one only after closing this one, and the reverse.

Unattended installation

For deployment across several machines:

UltimatePlayout_Setup.exe /VERYSILENT /KEY=UP-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

In silent mode the module page is not shown and its defaults apply: everything installed, everything activated.

If the engine archive is already on the machine, point at it and the download is skipped:

UltimatePlayout_Setup.exe /VERYSILENT /OBSZIP="D:deployobs.zip"

Uninstalling

Uninstalling removes the program folder completely, engine included. Your cue lists, songs and exports are in your Documents folder and stay where they are.

Where to go next

The first start — what happens the first time you open the program.