Autodesk Inventor Pro v11 network installation

[Ravening_Wolf]

Does anyone have any experience of installing this software over the network? There is a tool included which configures MSIs for network deployment and all looks happy, but I cannot get the MSIs to install via GPO.

 

As always the documentation is poor (although there is loads for actually using the software) and there are no hints supplied for getting this software onto remote PCs.

 

Any ideas anyone?

[Ric_]

Don't know the software myself but http://appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=220 is a good place to start - these instructions are for v8 but how different can it be?

 

http://www.appdeploy.com is a genius website

[Ravening_Wolf]

Thanks for that. I had a cursory glance before posting here but I obviously didn't look hard enough. Sorry. :blush:

[Ravening_Wolf]

I'm new to this software deployment stuff (or setting it up anyway!) so I'm not quite sure how to add the command line switches to an MSI.

 

Any advice for a newbie please?

[Ric_]

type 'msiexec /?' and you will get the full list of Windows installer switches.

[Ravening_Wolf]

How does one compile those switches back into the MSI though? I tried using WWIW and all seemed to have installed but the application and files were not loaded to the C: drive. Strangely the application was available for uninstallation in the Control Panel though (all 4GB of it!)...

[Oops_my_bad]

Did you ever get this going? We have 40x licences and have used the deployment wizard which creates an MSI, at which point I just send it down via GPO. But it's the licencing server that's doint my head in, I want to avoid it if possible.

[Ravening_Wolf]

The teacher who purchased the software left and with her went the request for the installation....

[Halfmad]

Ravening_wolf perhaps this will help, I recently installed the same product (royal pain in the behind it is too).

 

Problem is that the network path you give it is what it uses in the MSI, so if you create the MSI in \\staff\msi\cad then move it to \\staff\inventor11 it won't work.

 

Fortunately I stalled the department until the summer holidays then imaged the suite, but I have used the MSI 3 times so far and it works.

[Halfmad]

Did you ever get this going? We have 40x licences and have used the deployment wizard which creates an MSI, at which point I just send it down via GPO. But it's the licencing server that's doint my head in, I want to avoid it if possible.

 

put simply you can't and will have to make a new MSI if you didn't have the server up and running when you initially deployed it. I didn't find it that hard but the interface is an absolute horror to use as there's lots in it you simply don't go near!

[Ravening_Wolf]

Thanks for the heads-up Halfmad. I'll give it another go this year

[Warwick]

If your using imaging software (Ghost), the new deployments in the 2008 Autodesk software will let you install the network deployment software on a standalone machine. Just make sure when you get to the point where you need to pick "configure" it will go through a wizard. By default, it points to standalone install, but you can pick network install. At this point you would put the ip or name of the license server. It works very well.

[Warwick]

Oops I should said also that this is using the DVD or CD's on a local machine.

[Halfmad]

Yup I've done that for our two stand alone licenses, although annoyingly I needed to call up and get codes for them to work.. so much for the 20+2 license scheme our vendor was offering, was an absolute pain to get details out of them, intially they denied it existed even though it was on the invoice!

[Warwick]

Yes, Autodesk has messed up the education software this year. I install the autodesk software at quite a few schools (I work for a consulting firm). It seems like every school that I'm at, the software is not registered with autodesk, so it's not just you...if that makes you feel any better

[TimJing]

You can call Autodesk licensing to have the license converted to a server based and run the License manager. This was easier for us as we can now ghost image or deploy the install of Autodesk products using their Admin Image method.

 

The only issue is that when you deploy or image, the SQL Express will not work, and you will need to install the content manually from the cd after the Admin Install or imaging. With out the SQL client you will not have the content available in the drawings(Like Nuts and bolts)