I thought I would have a go with Altera ModelSim. I already have Quartus II 14.1 Web Edition installed and running fine, compiling my designs. However, when I try to run ModelSim, it complains with 'Fatal License Error' saying it is unable to checkout a license. I have carefully made sure that I ran the Altera Starter Edition including selecting that option during the installation process and it says that no license is required. I tried installing it on a different computer but I get exactly the same message when I try to run it. The first computer was 64 bit Windows 7, the other one was 32 bit Windows 7.
Do I need some sort of license file to keep it happy, even though Altera says it doesn't need it?