Program updates

[greg.gebert978266]

Our company is new to Revit and trying to find the most efficient way of doing business. I noticed that there is a web update for Revit 2009. We just upgraded from 2008 to 2009 and now there is an update to 2009? It also appears that these updates are vital to the performance of the program. We have found in our little bit of experience that is is best to uninstall older version prior to installing newer versions, less chance of issues. It also appears that the web updates are the full install, not just a patch or something similar. The size of the install file along with the content is massive, I think our last deployment was over 1GB (no families, just program and materials)!!!! If I am thinking the correctly, it could be very cumbersome to upgrade an entire team let alone an office. And you have to make sure everyone in a team is on the newest version at the same time. We are thinking of skipping some updates because of the time it takes to do install them. I hope everything I said makes sense, let me know if it doesn't. I have a few questions though:
1. What month do the new versions usually get released (i.e. RAC2010, 2011.....)?
2. Do updates only come in full installs or are there patches and at what periodicity are they released?
3. Is there any indication whether or not Autodesk is trying to make the install smaller (content)?
4. If you have any lessons learned or best practices, they are appreciated.

[SCShell]

Hey there and welcome,
Updates are fairly common throughout the year. And yes, they are usually worth installing.
1. New yearly builds are released around April every year. (Used to be different, but now it gets released per Autodesk's schedule.) I usually wait until the first web update before I install a new yearly build, unless I see that it is stable and has really cool new features. This new release, RAC2009 has had some issues for some....

2.Updates are full installs. You can choose to download the components etc. (You will notice that in this new update, they are recommending that you install the new materials library which you would not "normally" download again for a patch.) These come out when needed...no defined schedule that I am aware of.

3. No indication as of yet to me.

4. The one thing about updates that I can recommend is to keep all of your custom, in-house families, templates and title blocks stored on your computer in a file "outside" of Revit's files.
This way, when you upgrade, you don't overwrite your personal data. (I have various file locations within "my documents" where I store all of my own families, templates and title blocks.)
As far as removing old build/versions...you don't have to:
The other advice that I can offer is to keep all of your old versions of Revit. I still have 4.5, 5, 6, 7.1 and 8.1 installed on my main machine. I have had a few projects in the past that I wanted to make revisions to and they didn't upgrade very well, or, I didn't want to spend the time to upgrade them and clean them up, just for what I needed. So, I like to be able to open them in the original program that they were created sometimes. (This is rare, but has come in handy over the years.)

I wish you all the best of luck.....Revit is worth it in my opinion!
Steve

[iru69]

3. Is there any indication whether or not Autodesk is trying to make the install smaller (content)?
Yes, there's indication they understand the issue and are working on it. However, I don't believe there's any timetable for it.
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=81019

[Rick Moore]

Hey there and welcome,
As far as removing old build/versions...you don't have to:
The other advice that I can offer is to keep all of your old versions of Revit.


That's not what the dialog says

[greg.gebert978266]

I guess I can see it both ways with regards to what versions to keep on your computer. Our company is full service and we do everything in house, so we haven't had any issues with outside consultants versions. Fortunately we haven't had any issue upgrading file yet either. Keep in mind though, we are new to this!

[Dimitri Harvalias]

That's not what the dialog says
I believe you don't have to delete previous versions (release numbers) but you can't have multiple builds of the same release on the same machine.

[SCShell]

I believe you don't have to delete previous versions (release numbers) but you can't have multiple builds of the same release on the same machine.

Hey there,
You responded before I could....I am referring to actual Release Builds (ie 4.5, 5, 6, 7.1, 8.1 etc)
You do need to un-install the same build when you upgrade a particular build....ie: RAC2009 upgraded to RAC2009SP1.
Sorry if I confused some.
Steve

[greg.gebert978266]

Hey there,
You responded before I could....I am referring to actual Release Builds (ie 4.5, 5, 6, 7.1, 8.1 etc)
You do need to un-install the same build when you upgrade a particular build....ie: RAC2009 upgraded to RAC2009SP1.
Sorry if I confused some.
Steve

Is it also advised to delete the program folder located in C:\Program Files\Revit Architecture XXXX prior to installing the new version? And what about this location: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\RAC XXXX?

[iru69]

To further clarify what Steve said, when you install a new build/service pack/web update/whatever you want to call it, the installer will automatically uninstall the previous version of the build/service pack/web update/whatever you want to call it. There's no need to manually un-install or delete any folders.

There is no reason to uninstall previous versions (e.g. 9.1, 2008, etc.) unless you no longer want them on your computer. If you do uninstall a previous version (i.e. add/remove programs), you'll probably also want to track down various related folders (e.g. content libraries) and delete them.


Is it also advised to delete the program folder located in C:\Program Files\Revit Architecture XXXX prior to installing the new version? And what about this location: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Autodesk\RAC XXXX?

[dfriesen]

And you have to make sure everyone in a team is on the newest version at the same time.
Just to clarify this - if you're concerned about having to upgrade the project, and are concerned about someone on the team not being able to access the file: project files are compatible between different builds of the same version of Revit, but not between different versions.

That is, you can't have someone on Revit 2008 and someone on Revit 2009 accessing the same file, but you can have someone on the original release of 2009 and this latest build of 2009.

Hope that helps ease the pressure of updating everyone at once.

[twiceroadsfool]

That is, you can't have someone on Revit 2008 and someone on Revit 2009 accessing the same file, but you can have someone on the original release of 2009 and this latest build of 2009.

Hope that helps ease the pressure of updating everyone at once.

Thats not always true, and ive heard its also not recommended by Adesk. In terms of the different builds being compatible, ive noticed the "File upgrade" dialogue when opening a few files in WU_1 that were previously in 2009 original. We upgraded everyone at once, so it wasnt an issue.

BUT, ive also read a few times about errors occuring and weird anomalies from people being in different builds of the same Version. We keep everyone in the same model in the same build, at all times.

[greg.gebert978266]

We keep everyone in the same model in the same build, at all times.

Whether you can have people on different builds or not, its probably good practice to keep everyone on the same build.