Object Enabler remote install not working on TrueView2011

[canadianmade]

I'm trying to deploy the Autodesk Object Enabler so I can view Civil3D objects in Trueview 2011.

I run the install using PSEXEC with msiexec /i ObjectEnabler.msi /qn (this is ran after TrueView has been installed)

It shows up in the Add/Remove programs as being installed but when viewing a drawing I just get white squares where contour information should be showing.

If I do the install manually on the machine it works no problem. I really don't want to have to install the ObjectEnabler on a few hundred computers manually!!!

Why oh Why does Autodesk make this so hard?

Can anyone shine some light onto why this is happening?

[GTVic]

I was able to get the MSI by running the OE EXE and locating the temp file that it created. I'm assuming that is what you did.

When you execute the EXE it asks for the target applications.

When you execute the MSI it does not ask for a target application so that is likely why it does not work.

For the RasterDesign OE, it actually has a separate MSI for each target but this OE appears to have only one so I'm guessing that it installs the generic files and then either the EXE creates the reg entries for each target or it passes a parameter to the MSI to specify the target.

I suggest exporting the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\DWG TrueView\R8, then do the OE install via the EXE, then export the key again and subtract what is common and then create a .reg file to deploy along with the MSI. I use WinMerge to do these type of comparisons.

You may also want to compare before/after HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Enablers or just all of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk but some of those reg entries will be created by the MSI.

Technically you don't need the OE, if your DWG files have proxy objects turned on then that should be sufficient for TrueView viewing/plotting, right?

Greg

[canadianmade]

Hey, Thanks for replying. First thing I should tell you is I'm not a CAD guy, I'm a IT guy that installs autodesk products but I have limited knowledge on how they work so "Technically you don't need the OE, if your DWG files have proxy objects turned on then that should be sufficient for TrueView viewing/plotting, right?" doesn't mean a whole lot but I'll pass it on to my CAD guys.

Outside of that I was able to get it correctly installed by using "OEfile.exe /q" instead of the MSI file. I guess using the /q makes it quite and it just attaches itself to any products it can find.

[skatterbrainz]

Wow, you did hijack this in a whole new direction 

Greg makes very good points and suggestions.

A few other notes that might help:

• Make sure you get the latest version of psexec at http://live.sysinternals.com
• If you look in the extracted files (%temp% usually) there may also be a setup.ini file.  If you look in there you may be able to pick out the install parameters used to specify the features Greg mentioned (which are not prompted from running the MSI alone).  These are always UPPER case by the way.
• Then run the msi using the those parameters to steer it in the right direction.  For example INSTALLLEVEL=5 or COMPANYNAME=Acme, and so on.

When a setup.exe prompts for features that the MSI does not, these are often found in the default setup.ini template and can be used to figure out how to feed the MSI much like how a transform (MST) works with it.

Another option is to open the .MSI in Orca and fish around in the Property table to see if there's a property row that controls what you want.  If the property is UPPER case, it's global and "public" and can be controlled from the command line (as described above).  You can also edit the value in the table and save a new .MSI to see if that works (not recommended, but sometimes it works fine)

I hope this helps.

[GTVic]

I am creating a scripted install for AutoCAD 2011 so I am running into the same problem. But our IT division will not allow ".exe /q" type solutions.

So I tried this again, when you run the EXE it creates a .TMP file in the TEMP folder nearly the size of the original EXE. So that is the generic MSI and you can rename it as I said in an earlier post and you can look at the contents via Orca.

After you pick your products in the selection dialog and then start the install, it then creates other MSIs in the TEMP folder with real .MSI extension and a name that matches the target. If you copy those ones, you get an MSI that targets the specific version and if you edit it in Orca you can see the altered values particularily in the Property/Registry tables and an extra entry in the Component and FeatureComponents tables.

So these are the files I was able to copy and hopefully they will work correctly.

711.tmp_AutoCAD_2011_-_English_(United_States).msi

711.tmp_DWG_TrueView_2011_-_Language_Neutral.msi

[canadianmade]

Wow......did you ever have to dig deep for that! Persistence pays off.