A way to ease remote install?

[Carleton.Henning566364]

We are trying to use a single service license. The company is connected via vpns spread out over several states. Is there a way to locally install the cad software, rather than having the user try to download the 11gigs of cad files upon their first use over limited networks. Or will we have to setup up local install machines for each site, and if this is the case can we remove the machines after the install or will they be needed for updates and maintance?

[dgorsman]

You might want to expound on your setup a bit more. I'm not familiar with "single service license" - is this stand-alone? Network? Do you intend users to run AutoCAD on their home computer, or is these computers in an office? Will they be connecting remotely to the computer over VPN, or just the license? What about common support files like blocks?

[Carleton.Henning566364]

Network, they will be running autocad at their office but the offices are far distant, and spread out. Everyone is connected via vpn. So installing over the vpn is really not an option, it is too large and most of the networks couldn't handle the load. But going to each site to set up a deployment server is also very costly both in time/travel distance.

So basically what we are looking for is a way to either setup a deployment server without actually going to site(I was wondering about mailing them a usb key with all the install files) or if there is another way to do this install so everyone could get the files locally instead of via the network(aka they install the files off usb or "fill in the blank" at each pc, and then the network licensing works as usual)

[cadtag]

Here's a thought, especially of your vpn / wan connections can get iffy. Go ahead and build deployment servers/license servers and ship them out. A deployment/license server doesn't need a whole lot of horsepower, so a small monitor with an Intel NUC hooked to the back and plugged into the LAN is all that's needed out there. Set each one up with a minimal number of licenses, at least one, and use the 'home base' license server as the fallback.

Heck, I did that with R2000 and a dozen old Dell P-90s

[nelson]

We do this when we have to deploy to a regional office we install off USB drive hooked off laptops. We just change a few lines in the deployment INI files to point to a new share location. This should also work on users computers running off USB drive. The deployments just have to be run off of a shared folder location not pathed to a drive letter.

1. Make sure you create a folder on USB Drive that host the location of the deployments (f:\Deployments\ADSK\)
2. Copy deployment to USB Drive folder ( \\server\share1\software\ADSK\) to the new location f:\Deployments\ADSK\)
3. browse to usb drive and rt click on f:\Deployments and pick properties SHARE and give it the name of Software, results are \\mycomp\software\ADSK\..
4. Then in IMG folder of the deployment, using text editor find the Imgx##.ini and the product.ini files of the deployment find and replace (\\server\share1\software) with (\\mycomp\software)
   should just be in the ==Global MSI Properties== section of both the Imgx##.ini and the product.ini
5. If using the shortcut to launch the install, make sure you change the target location to point to new share location \\mycomp\software\ADSK\
   \\mycomp\software\ADSK\2014\product\Img\Setup.exe /qb /I \\mycomp\software\ADSK\2014\product\Img\product.ini /language en-us

The only hard part is creating the share location on the remote users computer because the name changes per computer.
I'm sure you could prepackage the deployments on the USB drive with the proper computer name if you wish, but you have to change the target location of the shortcut after it's wired up. We choose to run a separate install.bat batch file that has this call in it instead of using the shortcut.

@echo off
call \\mycomp\software\ADSK\2014\product\Img\Setup.exe /qb /I \\mycomp\software\ADSK\2014\product\Img\product.ini /language en-us
pause

I would test first, sometimes the files don't copy to the USB device properly and you get a bad deployment. When done I copy to regional office server share location and repeat the changes to the INI's and install.bat file to the new share location. This way I have a local deployment there to do remote installs without calling back across the VPN\WAN.

Good luck