Deployment of Registry-S​aved System Variables - AutoCAD 2013

[mc-lemons]

Hi everyone,

I originally posted this question over on the Autodesk discussion groups forum:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Visual...13/m-p/4295867

but they really don't have a CAD management forum there, so I found this one and figured that I would see what the AUGIers could come up with. My question is copied and pasted down below:


My company is in the process of upgrading to AutoCAD 2013 (yes, I know 2014 is out, but IT won’t let us get the most recent because of fear of “new release bugs”). My company is small and our CAD Standards/Management is less than desirable. Over the past few years I have become the unofficial company CAD Manager and have slowly been getting us up to speed with using the latest capabilities and following best practices. So, I am becoming a fairly advanced user, but am by no means an expert, so please bear with me!

An issue that I deal with constantly is a new user not having the correct registry-saved system variables set up. This also happens a lot because our IT guy frequently reinstalls AutoCAD to fix issues. Every time AutoCAD is installed/reinstalled, all the registry-saved system variables are set to their default values. We have several that need to be set a certain way to match our current drafting standards (a few examples: .bak files turned off, plot.log files turned off, advanced attribute editor turned on, plot area relative to edge of paper, etc, etc.). Typically, I will get complaints from users about something not working correctly, and then I will troubleshoot the issue and eventually find out that they just had their AutoCAD reinstalled and their system variables are not set how they should be. Then I will get out my master system variable list and have them set all the variable s properly via the AutoCAD command line. What a pain!

I have read up on creating AutoCAD Deployments (and we will be using these Deployments for this upgrade), but there does not seem to be a way to set variables when creating the Deployment. I would have thought that someone (or Autodesk) would have found a robust, quick way to do this by now. However, I cannot find this anywhere on the internet (so I’m starting to have my doubts). I’m hoping the guru’s on here have something up their sleeves!

Finally, to complicate things a little more, most of our users actually use AutoCAD LT (so no Lisp), and only a select few (like me) have full AutoCAD. So, we will be creating two separate Deployment files as it stands (which is not a big deal).

Some of my preferred criteria for the solution:
-Solution can be used for both AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT (I’m okay with there being two separate system variable “deployment” files since we will already have two different AutoCAD Deployments. I would just like the procedure for deploying both packages to be the same regardless of whether it’s for LT or full version).
- Solution would be able to be applied to each workstation without opening AutoCAD on each machine (and ideally, it would all happen when the AutoCAD Deployment installer was run!)

Does anyone have any recommendations? Is there any current best practices for accomplishing this? (maybe by changing the registry through batch files, VBscript files, etc? Or using AutoCAD script files – however, this requires the program to be open to run, which I was trying to avoid).

I appreciate any input. Thanks for looking!

[Opie]

First, tell IT to stop reinstalling AutoCAD when they get a wild hair. If that doesn't work, tell management to take the overhead from the CAD downtime out of IT's budget. You should also mention it to management this is increasing costs unnecessarily.

Once you have your AutoCAD set the way you want, you could export the profile out to a file. This file is actually a containing registry edits. You could then import that profile back into AutoCAD and get back to where you were before the reinstall. This should work in LT, but I have never used LT to verify.

You will also want to look at creating a drawing template file with your company's variable preferences. Store this template on the server and point your AutoCAD to use that file when starting new drawings. Of course, you can have multiple drawing template files, just point your template directory to that server location for all users.

That should get you started.

[Ed Jobe]

Once you have your AutoCAD set the way you want, you could export the profile out to a file. This file is actually a containing registry edits. You could then import that profile back into AutoCAD and get back to where you were before the reinstall. This should work in LT, but I have never used LT to verify.

This file has an *.arg extension. If you want to run it, simply rename it to *.reg and then you can double click to run it. First make sure that you copy one from a good version of LT. Or you can manually edit the reg file in Notepad so that the registry keys point to the correct application. IT can also include this file as part of the default setup so that you don't start from scratch. Also, you can create yourself an Autodesk 360 account and back up all your custom stuff, cui, etc., not just registry keys. This is an automatic update setting in the latest versions of acad.

[dgorsman]

This file has an *.arg extension. If you want to run it, simply rename it to *.reg and then you can double click to run it. First make sure that you copy one from a good version of LT. Or you can manually edit the reg file in Notepad so that the registry keys point to the correct application. IT can also include this file as part of the default setup so that you don't start from scratch. Also, you can create yourself an Autodesk 360 account and back up all your custom stuff, cui, etc., not just registry keys. This is an automatic update setting in the latest versions of acad.

Just test the living *#4*#$ out of the 360 aspect first. Other users have been playing around with it and gotten bitten when old settings wiped out their current ones. Not saying the sytem *doesn't* work, just make sure you understand *how* it works before committing.

[Ed Jobe]

just make sure you understand *how* it works before committing.

Good advice for anything mentioned here.