Prodesktop install

[ZeroHour]

God prodesktop, I got v8 SP1 here. Just using a NAI in wininstall to get it all to work

Anyone want the nai?

I am still deciding if I am gonna make my own MSI which allows more control but hey if it works

 

When I told the teacher here it was a dodger package he came back with "ProDesktop a big!, industry standard, noone else has these problems!" implying it was my fault instead of the truth which is:

firsty using installshields msi engine to allow more commands is NOT standard.

Second any program that modifies the HKEY_CLASSES section after install is poor package.

Third, with the installshield engine you CAN run commands easily post install so they COULD have done the regserver themselves.

*RANT OVER

[Dos_Box]

I have been unable to deploy it successfully with ghost or wininstall. I'm sure it keels over without admin privileges somewhere. Either that or the 3d accel doesn't work with the built in graphics card. Could always be a reg key placed in a stupid area of the registry.

 

You need to manually add a DLL file into the directory structure. It's one of the pains which blight my daily life. I'd give you a link, but their site is down. Quality.

[tarquel]

ZH - yes please lol and does that mean we *dont* have to disable hardware acceleration? [because i really think its completely silly having to turn off hardware acceleration for a 3D CAD system - ooooh the irony lol]

 

Snuffkins - thought u meant XP SP2 for a moment [sorry - half asleep lol]. Because we only get the software to use as part of the head of tech going on a course, updates dont seem to be part of the deal it would seem - or lack of understanding of that "requirement" lol

 

I'd appreciate the SP2 - but it would be wrong of me to ask for that.

 

Please dont host it and provide a link directly [as i think it woudnt be very legal] but privately aquiring it somehow sounds good

 

I dont "think" we have to have a support contract just to get fixes to buggy software that is supposedly meant to help teach pupils the package lol

 

*wink wink* lol

 

Nath.

[ZeroHour]

Right, my NAI is now working fine. It will remove ProDesktop also when WinINSTALL tells it too.

NOTE: open the NAI in notepad BEFORE adding it to your WinInstall deploy list. You need to edit anything inside {}

It just uses msiexec to do it all.

Also when editing the NAI please note you will get a file not found error if you save the NAI and your pc does not have ProDesktop installed, you dont need it to edit the NAI and you can ignore the error.

 

Good luck

 

Download the NAI here

[tarquel]

Just to revive an old topic here....

 

Is there anyway do use orca do to this - as i cant seem to get wininstall and the nai to work.

 

Cheers

Nath

[bossman]

Heard of it but never went with it as i heard it can be a pig!

 

Can anyone give me a good reason as to why i would like to have it on my network?

any constructive info would be helpful thanks all in advance

[HodgeHi]

I just pmed you some info (email address) so i didnt post onto board.

[tarquel]

because its free for a school if a teacher does training cert - which is like minimal cost.

 

http://www.cadinschools.org/page.php?m=70#howto

 

[use the links at the top of that article - pdf's explaining the process]

 

I've found out why alot of us are kind of in the dark when it comes to support. In my case, its due to the teacher not filling in something that completes the certification, which in turn means that they wont recieve updates etc.

 

Regards

Nath

[HodgeHi]

We didn't get that far!! lol

[tarquel]

lol

 

I'll be glad of the support. I hope i might be able to ask them why their product is so faulty when it comes to setup? and why you have to disable hardware acceleration [in some cases] when its all about 3D in the first place? hehe

 

But throw in a thx for it being free

 

...maybe thats why hehe

 

Nath.

[ChrisC]

We had a reeeally annoying problem with prodesktop 2000i, it wouldn't install, the setup MSI would "unexpectedly" get interrupted.

 

We found we had to update our version of Windows installer!

 

Chris

[tarquel]

Well generally, you should always try to use the latest version of windows installer - for that very reason.

 

Alas, it doesnt work like that with ISScript which they also use i believe as a program needs the same version as it was made with - which is daft.

 

However, as mentioned elsewhere on the forum, you can get around this by editing the p/code of the ISScript packages and then deploy them via GP to all machines.

 

Thats what i do at least [ver 8-11 ive got on everywhere]

 

Cheers

Nath

[cookie_monster]

I've just been handed a copy of Pro Desktop 8 SP2 and some of the posts on here look worrying especially as the 2000i version we currently use works flawlessly.

 

Has anyone got this to deploy using group policy without issue or am i in for a bumpy ride?

 

Cheers.

[zag]

We had that extrude bug as well, ditched the software in the end.

[cookie_monster]

What software did you replace it with?

 

It's driving me mad i'm not prepared to log onto all 300 PC's to manually alter a setting, it's annoying as the old version worked just fine.

[DSapseid]

I've just been handed a copy of Pro Desktop 8 SP2 and some of the posts on here look worrying especially as the 2000i version we currently use works flawlessly.

 

Has anyone got this to deploy using group policy without issue or am i in for a bumpy ride?

 

Cheers.

 

Ive got it successfully deployed via group policy and i run a batch file on the first logon once the machine has been rebuilt to do the regserver thing to stop the extrude problem. I find the MSI's of the CD work fine.

[cookie_monster]

Hi DSapseid, does the .bat file require admin rights when it runs? All of our users are restricted so any user logon scripts run within that security context.

 

Thanks.

[Oops_my_bad]

"c:\Program Files\PTC\ProDESKTOP 8.0\Program\ProD.exe" /regserver

Couldn't this be put in a computer startup script? Perhaps even in the same GPO as the prodesktop software?

[meastaugh1]

"c:\Program Files\PTC\ProDESKTOP 8.0\Program\ProD.exe" /regserver

Couldn't this be put in a computer startup script? Perhaps even in the same GPO as the prodesktop software?

 

You can transform this into the MSI so that the registration happens at installation, as you might expect it to. That's what I do here, call a custom action which executes that command towards the end of the installexecutesequence. (Of course this wouldn't work retrospectively and you'd still need a script to run temporarily for existing broken installations).

 

I think that this issue is supposed to be resolved in the latest release.

[Oops_my_bad]

Ok, thanks for that - I'm running version 8 SP2 and have only just noticed this problem :oops: I am fairly up confident with orca MSI but can you tell us how to do a custom action in Orca and what we need to put in?

[meastaugh1]

First, you need to add the commands to register and unregister at install and uninstall respectively in the CustomAction table (| denotes a column change):

UnregisterProdesktop | 18 | F59122_ProD.exe | /unregserver

RegisterProdesktop | 18 | F59122_ProD.exe | /regserver

 

Then you call the aforementioned actions from the InstallExecuteSequence table:

UnregisterProdesktop | REMOVED="ALL" | 1450

RegisterProdesktop | REMOVED<>"ALL" | 6650

[cookie_monster]

meastaugh1, your edit worked just fine and the extrude issue wasn't preasent on install but if i unalocate the package it fails to uninstall with the error below, is it possibe that i've edited it incorrectly?

 

Thanks.

 

Product: PTC ProDESKTOP 8.0 -- Error 1721.There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action: RegisterProdesktop, location: C:\Program Files\PTC\ProDESKTOP 8.0\Program\ProD.exe, command: /regserver

[meastaugh1]

Sounds as though the condition for the install command isn't working.

 

Try replacing the install and uninstall conditions with the following respectively:

NOT Installed

REMOVE=~”All” OR MaintenanceMode=”Remove”

[cookie_monster]

It actually uninstalls correctly after a second reboot but i'll see if your other suggestion cleans it up.

 

Cheers.

[cookie_monster]

I can't find the table with those entries in can you tell me where they should be located.