I have a Windows 7 PC that does not have Internet access. I need to install Matlab on it but the Matlab website will not allow me to download a standalone installer. The only option they offer is to download a smaller installer that will then connect to their site and download and install Matlab.
Here's a little bit of backstory. As of R2014a, License End Users do not have the ability to download their software without installing it. Currently, only the Administrator and the Asset Managers have the ability to download only or to download and install the software. With a little work I was able to achieve a workaround.
I've detailed the steps below to download the installer so that you can install Matlab on a PC that does not have Internet access.
Navigate to the Mathworks License Center: https://www.mathworks.com/licensecenter
Click "Activation and Installation"
Click "Activate"
Fill out the activation form with the information for the PC where you want to install Matlab. Download the License File and save the Activation Key to a text file. They'll be used for the standalone installation later on.
Next download Matlab by purchasing a license or using an existing one as shown below: https://www.mathworks.com/mwaccount/
Which will bring you to the actual download page. Save the executable to a known location, in this example we'll be using the c:\downloads folder.
Once you've downloaded the executable, run it. It will extract files to a directory named c:\downloads\Matlab_R2015b_win32_Installer" or something similar depending on the version you've downloaded. This folder will be used later.
Let the installer download and install Matlab on your PC. Don't worry about activation as you won't be using it on this PC anyhow. Once downloading is complete navigate to c:\downloads (or whatever download directory you used). There will be a directory in there called Mathworks. This directory contains Matlab installation files. These files will have to be combined with the files from the c:\downloads\Matlab_R2015b_win32_Installer directory to create the standalone installer.
Copy all of the files from c:\downloads\Mathworks\archives\common\*.* to c:\downloads\Matlab_R2015b_win32_Installer\archives\common
Copy all of
the files from c:\downloads\Mathworks\archives\win32\*.* to
c:\downloads\Matlab_R2015b_win32_Installer\archives\win32
I like to keep my installers in c:\software. So I copied over the c:\downloads\Matlab_R2015b_win32_Installer folder to c:\software and renamed it to Matlab R2015b for simplicity.
Now you can burn the "Matlab R2015b" folder to a DVD / flash drive along with the Activation Key and License File downloaded above and you'll be able to install Matlab on a PC that doesn't have Internet access. Just click on the setup.exe file to launch the installer.