As you know, Autodesk Revit Building 8 shipped last Friday and CDs are already in some customer’s hands. Today we went live with a new download site as well. In the past there has been an amazing demand for Revit downloads - this time around, we have made some infrastructure improvements that hopefully will help satisfy the demand and get as many people as possible using Revit Building 8 as soon as possible!
Here is a little background on how the Autodesk Revit Web Installer works for those that would like more info. (Moderators, please make this a ‘Sticky’)
For problems downloading or installing Autodesk Revit Building 8 please contact Autodesk Revit Support at http://www.autodesk.com/supportrequest
Background: We are now using a robust, industry-standard service to distribute our web installer (.exe and .cab files) to customers around the world. This service basically enables faster and more scalable downloads of high-demand content and works by caching requested content much closer to the end-user geographically.
We tested this service out via the Modnadnock beta and it preformed pretty well. There were, however, a few cases where customers experienced long install times or installer errors. We think we resolved the known issues but want to offer some suggestions and background (mostly because we cannot control the rest of the Internet):
First, if dialogs come up during the content download portion of the install, DON’T PANIC!!! 
These messages do not mean the entire install failed! You will still be able to continue the install and use the application. Here are two common messages:
1. “Autodesk Revit was unable to download the file. Check your Internet connection and press Retry to start the download again, or press Skip to stop downloading file.”
a. This message is somewhat ‘normal’ and indicates there was a problem downloading a particular cab file for some reason. This could be anything affecting the link from your computer out to the internet and then to our servers.
b. It does NOT mean the entire install failed! You can safely hit the ‘Skip’ button if you want here.
c. Revit is somewhat ‘fault tolerant’ and will ask you if you’d like to retry downloading this file the next time you start up the application.
2. “The file could not be downloaded. The server replied with error code 403.”
a. This error is more severe and could appear if many, many people are downloading at once.
b. If you see this error, you can press the ‘Retry’ button but you may need to press the ‘Skip’ button and have Revit try back later.
c. This error could also indicate a firewall issue in some cases.
Second, if you see long install times or a lot of installer messages like the ones above, please do the following:
1. Did I mention not to panic?
2. Determine if there are any issues with firewalls or other ’last mile’ internet connectivity issues at your office.
3. Please be patient! This is especially important over slower connections like dialup. Try back later if possible.
4. Only download the web installer and the content once if you will be installing on multiple computers at your office. Do this by following the directions under
How to Run Multiple Installations from the Web Download in the
Read This First document
5. If you still have problems, you can always download the content .cab files manually by following the process outlined below (giving credit to Leonid or course!)
If problems persist, especially very slow downloads and “error code 403’ messages, please contact Autodesk Revit Support at http://www.autodesk.com/supportrequest
(The following tip was originally posted by Leonid in http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=9887 , minor updates for 8.0 by me)
A recipe for downloading/installing Revit content manually
If the automatic content download feature of the web installer is not working for you, or you simply want more control over the process, you can download the content .cab files manually.
Step 1
1. Look for a file called Content.rcl in the Program folder of your Autodesk Revit Building 8 installation. This file is a text file that controls content installation
2. If this file is not present in the Program directory, you’re finished!
If this file does not exist, all content you requested has been installed already and you do not need to perform the following steps.
3. If you find this file, use Notepad (or other text editor) to open it and proceed with the following steps. Inside the file you will find a series of content bundles descriptions. Below is an example of one of such bundle - English Help Files
[Bundle_ENUHelp.cab_40]
language=ENU
units=[any]
name=English Help
locale=[any]
type=Help
size=5.3MB
filename=ENUHelp.cab
minorVersion=0
majorVersion=6
description=English Help Files
usage=Architectural,Construction
fullpath=http://revit.downloads.autodesk.com/download/8_0/ContentENU/ENUHelp.cab
altfullpath=C:Program FilesAutodesk Revit Building 8DownloadContentENUENUHelp.cab ß THIS IS THE PATH YOU NEED
4. For our purposes we are interested in just the last line that contains value of
altfullpath.
Step 2
1. Open
content download page
2. For every bundle found in Content.rcl file, manually download corresponding cab file and place it into folder as indicated by altfullpath variable for this bundle.
3. Pay attention - some files go into ContentENU folder while others go into ContentAll.
Step 31. Close Content.rcl file and start Autodesk Revit Building 8.
2. Revit will first complain about missing template and libraries and then ask you if you want to attempt to install them. Answer Yes. Then Revit will ask you for an installation CD (which you don't have). This is OK, just let it run.
3. Revit will find cabinet files that you just downloaded manually and will extract all the necessary content files to complete the installation.
4. Exit Revit and start it again. This time there should be no error messages - you are all set.
Tips for Installing Autodesk Revit Building 8 using the Web Installer
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Originally Posted by zanzibarbob7
