Autodesk

Trueview 2007 on terminal server (2003)

Quick&dirty installation;

prerequisites:
.NET framework 2.0
DX 9.0 runtime
Turn off DEP (Data execution protection)

1 Do a typical installation
2 Move to All Users profile (careful, file permissions):
  C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Autodesk\DWG TrueView 2007
  C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\DWG TrueView 2007

3 Export HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk to HK_DEF_autodesk.reg
3a Replace HKEY_CURRENT_USER with HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT, administrator with All Users in the reg file

4 Export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Autodesk to HKLM_winnt_autodesk.reg
4a Replace administrator with All Users in the reg file

5 Import the modified .reg files

At startup of Trueview there will be an error message complaining about an incomplete installation, click on yes to continue.


DWG Trueview 2009

To get Trueview 2009 running on a Terminal server (2003) do the following;

1 Copy robocopy to the Windows directory (need it to copy files)
2 Create a directory batch (or scripts) under the Windows directory
3 Install DWG Trueview 2009 on the server
4 From the current user profile copy the Trueview directory from Application Data and Local Setting\Application Data to the Default User profile
5 Copy the following two scripts to the batch directory under Windows;
  copy batch copies the two directories to the user profiles with robocopy (name shortened by renaming it to rcopy)
  registry vb script creates the default registry entries for R6 with wscript if it doesn't exist,
  one thing to note; some hexadecimal values are converted to decimal as the function SetDWORDValue does weird things with values like &H0000xxxx
6 Open gpedit.msc, or create a group policy and add both scripts to the logon scripts for users
  (add screenshot later)

Start Trueview as a regular user and there should be no error messages popping up.


Design Review 2009

The installation for Design Review is similar to Trueview.
The difference is only the Application data\Autodesk directory needs to be copied to the Default user profile and the registry entries are a lot less.
To get it running copy this batch and registry script and add them to a policy as described above.


Design Review 2009 Softgrid package

Creating a Softgrid 4.1/4.2 package of Design Review 2009 took some trouble, it wouldn't launch during the process on a XP sequencer machine.
The cause was multiple dependentAssembly definitions in several .config files.

To get a working package do the following;

1 Start the Softgrid monitoring and install DR2009 (did this in B:\cad\autodesk\dr2009)
2 At the launch dialog, launch both entries (Design Review and DWF viewer)
3 Enter the directory for DR2009 in a command prompt and enter the command dir /s *.config
4 For each file that isn't 477 or 480 bytes in size, open it in notepad and remove the duplicate
   <sxs:dependentAssembly>...</sxs:dependentAssembly> definitions
   There are some files which even had 3 of these definitions, so remove all but 1 in all files
5 Finish the packaging process (do not launch the applications again after modifying the files!)

This created the package I could use on Terminal server 2003.


Design Review and DWG Trueview 2010

Looks like Autodesk finally got the message, the first test installation of version 2010 did not require workarounds to get it running in a terminal server environment.
So, if no special need for the older versions, use 2010.


Still to come; Installing Autocad

Without having tested it myself, installing Autocad into a separate directory and giving the users group modify permissions on it would work. This is done by setting up a custom image with the Autocad installation (see their documentation).