Revit 2012 Deployment Creation

[Baldwin_4-6-0]

It should go without saying, but for those who are, um <clear my throat> lazy, and would rather have someone else worry about it, we need your feedback as well. The more support tickets you submit to Autodesk the quicker we will see a fix.:

Did I just get called <clear my throat> lazy. lol
If so, no offense taken. it was funny.

I would say we are <clear my throat> cautious & vigilant.
We are more than just a 2 person firm & we cannot afford to be running a prematurely released version of any CADD software. We will test newly released versions of any CADD software before we implement it on active projects, then decide if the platform is stable enough to run on active projects and as we test we will send in crash reports & support requests on the tests if needed.

I definitely agree, it is important to report crashes and send in support requests.
However, we pay a lot of money for all the licenses we have to be "live beta testers" and unless they are willing to give us huge discounts on the 50+/- licenses we own, or start paying us to be beta testers, we are not just going to put our firm at risk to help a CADD software company fix their software issues that should already be fixed before releasing the new version.. just saying.... ;D

So far our tests of Revit 2012 reveal that it is working pretty good, (still more tests to be done).

[jrostar]

I understand what you're saying and that is close to the same 'lecture' I received yesterday from our IT staff here yesterday...

The kicker is, as a Beta Tester, I have been using / testing / evaluating Revit 2012 for quite some time and I found the software to be quite stable and found remarkably zero problems in the time I spent with it. However, in that situation, I was installing a single seat and I wanted the Library installed locally. In the four years I've been managing deploys & new software releases, I never had a problem with content installation or file path settings. I never figured that I would need to give the deploy creation a run through in the beta process... Guess we live and learn.

On the above found defects, still no news from the Developers. The tech said they are trying to figure out a workaround / hotfix to eliminate the 'required' content pack download & installation

[heath.simone]

jrostar - i was on the beta for a couple of products and Autodesk didn't want to know about issues with the network deployement side of things during the beta testing, they where more concerned with how the software worked...

[brethomp]

Here is a Revit Clinic article on customizing the Revit.ini file for a deployment. This will take care of the issues in the first post.

To stop the deployment of content there is another XML file that you need to update. I have attached a version that will skip deploying any content for RAC.

[jrostar]

Thanks for posting the link. I ran across it this morning and have been messing around a bit with it since.

A big thanks for the content solution. Big erasing the paths for the various content, the deploy essentially skips over? I thought about messing with that but I was worried the deploy would just fail

[cphubb]

Still not sure it address ALL the issues people are experiencing.
First the only documentation on the issue is Harlans Blog. REALLY??
Second it only address the issues of the ini file creation. Does not address custom Places for libraries.
Also because of the GIUD issue you need to edit the XML file perfectly or no INI will be created. We have been looking at that file now and are just guessing at the Key syntax and hoping it will work. I suspect we will spend HOURS reinstalling 2012 on test boxes to get it right.
The Places, which previously were in the ini file and the Registery are now only in the Registry. We aer looking a a VBscript to update each machine to the proper Places.

NOW if ACAD can set over 100 setttings in its deployment why not Revit? There are only about 12.

SAD on lack of planning and lack of documentation.

[Rustle]

Thanks Bret. Worked like a charm and saved me a lot of headache.

[cphubb]

Here is a Revit Clinic article on customizing the Revit.ini file for a deployment. This will take care of the issues in the first post.

To stop the deployment of content there is another XML file that you need to update. I have attached a version that will skip deploying any content for RAC.

Bret,

We copied that file over the content XML and got an error when running the deployment. any idea why? Replaced the previous and it ran fine. (Installed content)

[brethomp]

Bret,

We copied that file over the content XML and got an error when running the deployment. any idea why? Replaced the previous and it ran fine. (Installed content)

Instead of using the file I posted, edit your existing file to be similar. It's basically just deleteing everything between the Content tags.

[cphubb]

Did you also edit the XSD file to validate the XML? I wonder if that is the problem?