Locking down the username to the computer login name?

[scott.kern]

Is there any way to hardwire the username so it is automatically filled in by the name of the person accessing the computer? Does it have to do with the Revit.ini file? If this can be done, can it then be locked to that computer login name or can it be changed once the user has logged on and opened Revit?

It hasn't happened yet but there has been some concern where I work that different Revit users could potentially impersonate another user on a problematic project, so I was curious if there was a way to keep that from happening.

Thanks in advance.

[Steve_Stafford]

The username= parameter in the Revit.ini file is the culprit.

When it is blank (username= ) Revit will use the current logged in user name.
If someone enters a value into the Options > General tab > Username field it gets stored in the Revit.ini file and Revit gives it priority over the current logged in user name for the PC.

The scripts that David and David shared here to create local files include a portion to find and remove the username parameter so it remains blank prior to opening the project file.

[Batman]

...

The scripts that David and David shared here to create local files include a portion to find and remove the username parameter so it remains blank prior to opening the project file.

Scripts??

Little help please. Can someone please clarify how I can get the user name to become consistent with the windows login name. I have multiple users on the same machine.

[Steve_Stafford]

How many users are you dealing with?

If your users only log on their own computers you can edit the Revit.ini file and remove the specific username that appears next to Username. Revit will just use whichever login identity is currently in use on the computer.

If you are using worksets then you might consider the Local File scripts that I mentioned in the previous post. There are separate threads by both of them for their routines. They are more involved than a simple reply here can do just for. Read them.

[TroyGates]

We have computers in all of our conference rooms that people can log into and run Revit for VDC meetings. To prevent someone from changing the username and other ini settings, we have removed all editing rights to the Revit.ini file except for some IT admins. This prevents Revit from saving anything to the Revit.ini.

To do this right-click the Revit.ini file and remove "modify" security rights to the file for everyone but the IT admins. Now Revit can't change the file as it doesn't have rights to.

[ron.sanpedro]

How many users are you dealing with?

If your users only log on their own computers you can edit the Revit.ini file and remove the specific username that appears next to Username. Revit will just use whichever login identity is currently in use on the computer.

If you are using worksets then you might consider the Local File scripts that I mentioned in the previous post. There are separate threads by both of them for their routines. They are more involved than a simple reply here can do just for. Read them.

Steve, does it work that way now? I thought if the User was blank it got filled in with the first user to launch Revit, and that was used from then on out, no matter who was logged in?

Prsonally I want it to automatically use both the logged in user name AND the machine name. So if a user makes locals on two machines (doing renderings or walk thru's for example) they don't have two connections to central with the same credentials. Seems like it should be trivial to do, since Revit can obviously access the windows user name, it can also access the machine name, and it could use both for every session, rather than populating an INI.

Gordon

[Steve_Stafford]

Yes...that's been my observation, uses whichever person is logged into the computer as long as the username field has not been altered in the Options dialog. If changed, it sticks to the value someone enters in the username field regardless of logon user.

[twiceroadsfool]

It doesnt handle the "multiple computers with one user" scenario, but the easiest way around this ive seen, is to have a Batch Script that ones at User log on, that replaces the Revit.ini file with one that has the "username=" line blank, as Steve demonstrated.

If the .ini file is replaced at each users log on, it will get that users Windows log on. Of course, it will also replace whatever options are still being controlled by the .ini, though theyre fewer this year than last.