Revit not Starting

[irneb]

I’ve found that Revit 2008 doesn’t start up after I’ve used AutoCAD. I can only get it to start-up by uninstalling & re-installing Revit, then start Revit before I start AutoCAD. This happens in both scenarios where I:

start AutoCAD, close it then try to open Revit ... nothing happens; or
start AutoCAD, then directly try to start Revit ... nothing happens In both above if I uninstall Revit, then reinstall Revit, then Revit starts up. But as soon as I’ve used AutoCAD at all, the same happens.

[dhurtubise]

Which OS and version are you running?

[irneb]

I'm working on Windows XP Pro 32 bit (SP2) with Revit Architecture 2008, Service Pack 1 installed.

I've tried this yesterday as well, it seems that if I restart my computer the "error" occurs. If I've re-installed Revit, then it works with or without AutoCAD running. Until of course, the pc is restarted. Then Revit doesn't want to start anymore.

No new task is shown in the task manager after double clicking the Revit icon on the desktop, or choosing Revit from the start menu, or double clicking on the Revit.exe file in the Porgram Files folder.

The mouse cursor changes (for a very short interval) to the arrow with an hourglass. Then changes back to the normal arrow. Absolutely nothing else happens. Even, task manager doesn't notice that anything has changed - the CPU usage doesn't even update during this time.

[still.james]

are you using any sort of antivirus on your pc, that may block registry changes on install.

[dhurtubise]

Install the latest build (can be downloaded from the web).

[irneb]

Yes, thanks you guys. Asked this question of my AutoDesk dealer as well. He's suggested disabling anti-virus, anti-spy, etc. I'm using AVG. Tried this (disabling) before re-install. Worked fine, until we had a power-cut & the PC had to restart. Then the same thing happened - no Revit.

However, trying every which way of opening Revit, I've finally found a method that works without reinstalling:
In Window’s Explorer, right-click the RVT file.
Select “Open With" & "Choose Program”. Simply double-clicking or right-click & Open doesn’t work.
From the dialog select “Autodesk Revit” & click OK.
Revit now loads properly ... for that project file only.
Still the same problem if you just want to start Revit.
I've already installed the latest service pack & hot-fixes. Unfortunately, after I uninstall, then reinstall, then try to install SP1 - it tells me that SP1 is already installed. So I've uninstalled & reinstalled AutoCAD as well, then installed SP1 & all the hotfixes I could find on the AutoDesk site ... still having the same problem.

Even tried uninstalling AVG, thus no anti-anything running. Same problem.

[guitarchitect7]

I spoke with Revit Tech support yesterday and this was a work around the Autodesk sent out for this kind of issue. It's a known problem and the development team is working on it. Here is the letter:


We have seen a number of cases where a Revit product fails to run after the computer is rebooted after Revit is installed. Often the software will run once and then not run when users log out or reboot the computer. We are currently investigating this issue with the help of our development team and there are a number of possible workarounds to the problem that may allow Revit to run on their machines.

They may be able to Right click on the desktop shortcut for Revit and select "Run As…". Then, click OK. If Revit does not run they may need to select the option for "The following user:" and log in as an Administrator. In many cases this has allowed Revit to start, however, in some cases, mapped network drives on the machine may not be recognized from within Revit.

There are two windows system registry keys that if renamed may allow Revit to run correctly. It is possible to rename these two keys, reboot the machine, and Revit will start successfully from then on, however, we recommend caution when attempting to do this. These two keys are not registry keys for Revit, but for the operating system, and deleting or renaming these two keys could result in a Data Execution error from Windows Explorer and cause serious system problems. Make sure to backup any important data before editing the registry. You may not see these keys in the registry - if this is the case, then they are not the problem.
Here are the keys to look for on the client's machine:

To access the registry editor, go to the Start menu and click Run on Windows XP. In the run dialog, type REGEDIT. Then find the following two registry keys and rename them by adding – BACKUP to the end:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers\
REG_SZ: $WinDir\Explorer.exe

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\NoExecuteState\
REG_DWORD: LastNoExecuteRadioButtonState

Warning! Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft provides a wealth of critical information that you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support.

Let me know if these suggestions help. We understand the critical nature of this problem and the impact that it is having on our customers. We are working with our development team to solve this issue and are sorry for any inconvenience it may cause. We will keep you informed on any updates on this issue as they are available.

If you have any questions or would like to add anything additional to this support request please feel free to reply to this email and we will be glad to help.

Best Regards,

Autodesk Support Team

[irneb]

Thanks, so it's not just me ... I was starting to think I'm doing something wrong.

I think I'll leave the registry alone for now & just use the right-click work-around. Hopefully AutoDesk doesn't take too long to create some sort of hotfix.

[irneb]

Any update on this happened? Still having this prop with Revit 2008.

[nole]

Hi there!
I would try to reinstall OS, then install Revit. I've installed Revit on many, many machines with many diferent configurations and never experienced such problem.