Sometimes it is very useful to by-pass the GUI (Grafical User Interface) and run a simulation using CLI (Command Line Interface). For doing this using Windows, follow this steps:

1. Create a simulation folder
2. Create a DIMR configuration file
3. Create a batch file
4. Execute the batch file

Create a simulation folder

Create a new folder (e.g., <run_001>) and paste inside the simulation files. If you have a project created with the GUI, export the project as DIMR and this will be the simulation folder. If you are creating it from scratch, add the files of each module in a folder. E.g., the files of D-FLOW in <run_001/dflowfm> and the files of D-Real Time Control in <run_001/rtc>. 

Create a DIMR configuration file. 

At the top level of the simulation folder, create the DIMR configuration file. E.g., <run_001/dimr_config.xml>. This file communicate the different modules used in a simulaiton and the parallelization. If you have exported a GUI project, this file is created automatically. The simplest example of a DIMR configuration file for the case of a simulation only using D-FLOW on a single core is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<dimrConfig xmlns="http://schemas.deltares.nl/dimrConfig" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.deltares.nl/dimrConfig http://content.oss.deltares.nl/schemas/d_hydro-1.00.xsd">
    <documentation>
        <fileVersion>1.00</fileVersion>
        <createdBy>Deltares</createdBy>
        <creationDate>2022-02-22 15:27</creationDate>
    </documentation>
    <control>
        <start name="myNameDFlowFM"/>
    </control>
    <component name="myNameDFlowFM">
        <library>dflowfm</library>
        <workingDir>dflowfm</workingDir>
        <inputFile>mdu_file_name.mdu</inputFile>
    </component>
</dimrConfig>

where you have to adapt 'mdu_file_name' to the name of your mdu-file. Note that it is not strictly necessary to place the files of D-FLOW into a folder called <run_001/dflowfm>. If your simulation only emplys D-FLOW, you can place all the files directly in <run_001>. In this case, adapt the name under the <workingDir> flag in the DIMR configuration file to '.', i.e., <workingDir>.</workingDir>.

Create a batch file

Create a batch that calls the executables of Delft3D FM to the DIMR configuration file. If you are using a version installed in your computer, the right executable is here <c:\Program Files (x86)\Deltares\Delft3D Flexible Mesh Suite HMWQ (2021.03)\plugins\DeltaShell.Dimr\kernels\x64\dimr\scripts\run_dimr.bat>

The simplest batch file will look like:

call "c:\Program Files (x86)\Deltares\Delft3D Flexible Mesh Suite HMWQ (2021.03)\plugins\DeltaShell.Dimr\kernels\x64\dimr\scripts\run_dimr.bat"  dimr_config.xml 

Note the double quotes (") which are necessary if the path involves spaces. If you want the window to disappear after running the simulation, add exit at the end. 

Execute the batch file

Simply press enter (or double click if you are a mouse-lover). The simplest manner of seeing the progress of the simulation is by loading the results of the history file (which usually have a higher frequency than the map results).