AutoCAD 2007 Revit 9.1 series issue with FlexLM if log in with guest account in to workstation.

[Anonymous]

AutoCAD 2007 Revit 9.1 series issue / Bug with FlexLM



Facts:
What we always did:
We enabled the built-in "Guest account" in addition to regular users account
on Windows XP sp2 stations and make it as part of "power user group".
The occasional users logged in to each othr's stations and used the
applications that they did not have on their regular stations.
Guest account works with all the other application including all of the
Microsoft products and all of the previous versions of AutoCAD / Revit prior
to 2007.
It is a paid product after all and anybody in our office should be able to
use it.

The issue:
After we installed the AutoCAD 2007 Revit 9.1 series and we login to station
as the Guest account, AutoCAD 2007 and Revit 9.1 is unable to get license
from FlexLM server. (I tried to make the guest account a member of
Administrative or Power Users group and it did not resolve the problem). But
if we login to station as any other user it works fine.

We contacted our support/dealer and Autodesk they (Autodesk) came up with
this answers.

I was able to reproduce this issue here and I escalated it to our
development team. They have responded and closed the issue by explaining
that AutoCAD was not designed to run under the Guest account. New licensing
components integrated in AutoCAD 2007 and Revit 9 will not work reliably (or
in some cases at all) as the Guest user. At this point, this is the final
word from the AutoCAD development team since the problem occurs in an
untested, unsupported environment.

I would like to say that using Guest account with power user rights should
not be illegalized by Autodesk and I have not seen a single application from
any developer including Microsoft product that is unable to run under this
built user account (Guest).
The built in guest user account has a very handy especially because by
default has some restriction that is hard to be enabled.

[Anonymous]

If you check your license agreement (EULA), you'll see that Autodesk does
not support using a PC as a server or host in any way, such as with Windows
Terminal Server, Citrix, or the Guest Account.

Autodesk allows multiple sessions of AutoCAD on one PC, while only using a
single license from the network license server. This is allowed for the
convenience of one user at one PC. Autodesk could easily configure the
license so that multiple sessions would use multiple licenses, but they have
not, trusting that one user uses one PC.

When you turn the PC into a server, and allow multiple users to share that
license, you are violating the license agreement.

There is a trivial workaround: simply install AutoCAD on the workstations
that are trying to use the Guest Account, and share the network license, as
it is designed.

--Cy--
(I don't speak officially for Autodesk)

[Anonymous]

Ok I will explain more.



User "A" is sick and in not coming to work for 1 day.

A consultant comes on to carry out user A's work for that day.

Consultant walks to the user A's PC and wants to log in as guest for that
day.

I am not trying to turn the PC into a server or anything like that.



Also would you please explain more about the "share the network license".



Do you mean share it locally between the users of that PC (share by the
users of that PC locally)?

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, I misunderstood your situation. My experience with the Guest
Account is with networking on XP Home, to allow printer sharing and so on.
Please ignore my comments about the network license.

Note what Microsoft says about the Guest Account:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300489

When you use the Guest account to log on, the following activities apply: .
You do not require a password.
. You cannot install software or hardware.
. You cannot change the Guest account type.
. You cannot create a password for the account.
. You cannot change the Guest account picture.
. You cannot access the applications that have already been installed
on the computer.


In this case, the workaround is simply to create an account for Consultant A
on the PC.

--Cy--


"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451654@discussion.autodesk.com...
Ok I will explain more.



User "A" is sick and in not coming to work for 1 day.

A consultant comes on to carry out user A's work for that day.

Consultant walks to the user A's PC and wants to log in as guest for that
day.

I am not trying to turn the PC into a server or anything like that.



Also would you please explain more about the "share the network license".



Do you mean share it locally between the users of that PC (share by the
users of that PC locally)?

[Anonymous]

You see,
we have some 30 licenses for stand alone version of AutocadLT 2007.
I installed it and had no problem using guest account. and I am sure that
stand alone version of AutoCAD 2007 will do fine under guest account and
will work fine.

I would like to know why not the network version?
don't we pay as much or more for our network version?


wrote in message news:5451671@discussion.autodesk.com...
I'm sorry, I misunderstood your situation. My experience with the Guest
Account is with networking on XP Home, to allow printer sharing and so on.
Please ignore my comments about the network license.

Note what Microsoft says about the Guest Account:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300489

When you use the Guest account to log on, the following activities apply: .
You do not require a password.
. You cannot install software or hardware.
. You cannot change the Guest account type.
. You cannot create a password for the account.
. You cannot change the Guest account picture.
. You cannot access the applications that have already been installed
on the computer.


In this case, the workaround is simply to create an account for Consultant A
on the PC.

--Cy--


"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451654@discussion.autodesk.com...
Ok I will explain more.



User "A" is sick and in not coming to work for 1 day.

A consultant comes on to carry out user A's work for that day.

Consultant walks to the user A's PC and wants to log in as guest for that
day.

I am not trying to turn the PC into a server or anything like that.



Also would you please explain more about the "share the network license".



Do you mean share it locally between the users of that PC (share by the
users of that PC locally)?

[Anonymous]

I don't know. It seems to be a Microsoft restriction.

--Cy--

"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451860@discussion.autodesk.com...
You see,
we have some 30 licenses for stand alone version of AutocadLT 2007.
I installed it and had no problem using guest account. and I am sure that
stand alone version of AutoCAD 2007 will do fine under guest account and
will work fine.

I would like to know why not the network version?
don't we pay as much or more for our network version?

[Anonymous]

But all of the Microsoft products work well under this conditions (Guest
Account).

wrote in message news:5451911@discussion.autodesk.com...
I don't know. It seems to be a Microsoft restriction.

--Cy--

"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451860@discussion.autodesk.com...
You see,
we have some 30 licenses for stand alone version of AutocadLT 2007.
I installed it and had no problem using guest account. and I am sure that
stand alone version of AutoCAD 2007 will do fine under guest account and
will work fine.

I would like to know why not the network version?
don't we pay as much or more for our network version?

[Anonymous]

It appears that the Guest Account can be assigned rights and privileges,
like any other account. You may have to configure that account a certain
way in order for it to work. See the Help file for your Autodesk product.

For example, for AutoCAD 2007:

"To install AutoCAD, you must have administrator permissions. You do not
need to have domain administrative permissions. See your system
administrator for information about administrative permissions.

To run AutoCAD, you do not need power user or administrator permissions. You
can run the program as a limited user.

If you are a limited user, you must run AutoCAD from the Start menu or from
the desktop shortcut icon. If you want to create a custom shortcut, make
sure that the Start In directory for the shortcut points to a directory
where you have write permissions. As a limited user, you cannot run AutoCAD
from the folder where it is installed (for example, c:\Program Files\AutoCAD
2007\acad.exe)."

--Cy--

"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451914@discussion.autodesk.com...
But all of the Microsoft products work well under this conditions (Guest
Account).

wrote in message news:5451911@discussion.autodesk.com...
I don't know. It seems to be a Microsoft restriction.

--Cy--

"Keyvan" wrote in message
news:5451860@discussion.autodesk.com...
You see,
we have some 30 licenses for stand alone version of AutocadLT 2007.
I installed it and had no problem using guest account. and I am sure that
stand alone version of AutoCAD 2007 will do fine under guest account and
will work fine.

I would like to know why not the network version?
don't we pay as much or more for our network version?

[Anonymous]

Unfortunatly I cannot see what error you got on the screenshot, since it's
too low-res to read.

However from my understanding the licensing should not cause you errors.
As for Autocad itself that might be another case which I don't know enough
about.

Did you verify that environment variables or paths to license server is
setup correctly?
Perhaps you should explicitly try to set the environment varible
LM_LICENSE_FILE = @server
Also did you try to see in the server log if you get any requests from the
client?
You should look into the server logfile.

Best Regards,

Henrik Goldman
---

Track your flexlm licenses and reduce your costs -
http://www.x-formation.com/license_statistics/index.html

Our licensing and software security blog -
http://www.x-formation.com/security_blog/
Protect your software - http://www.x-formation.com/LM-X

[Anonymous]

1-Here is the hi-res screenshot.
2-I did try to set the environment variable.
3-there is no sign of guest user in the server log.
4 if I start the AutoCAD 2006 there is no problems.

you could try it for yourself and it will not work 2007.
that is what I hear from other people.
To me this is a bug.

"Henrik Goldman" wrote in message
news:5452553@discussion.autodesk.com...
Unfortunatly I cannot see what error you got on the screenshot, since it's
too low-res to read.

However from my understanding the licensing should not cause you errors.
As for Autocad itself that might be another case which I don't know enough
about.

Did you verify that environment variables or paths to license server is
setup correctly?
Perhaps you should explicitly try to set the environment varible
LM_LICENSE_FILE = @server
Also did you try to see in the server log if you get any requests from the
client?
You should look into the server logfile.

Best Regards,

Henrik Goldman
---

Track your flexlm licenses and reduce your costs -
http://www.x-formation.com/license_statistics/index.html

Our licensing and software security blog -
http://www.x-formation.com/security_blog/
Protect your software - http://www.x-formation.com/LM-X