Ok...Problem fixed. It took a couple different steps to get there in the end, but it ended up being something entirely too simple. AND it could have been solved almost immediately had AUTODESK noticed the mass amounts of Crash Reports coming from my email address. SMH. Below is the step by step process I took to correct the issue. I decided to put ALL of this here in the case that my simple solution is not the end all solution for the rest of you that may encounter this problem. So here goes....
First step that was taken was to perform a clean uninstall of ALL Autodesk products. The process can be seen here:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=2887771&linkID=9240817
Once you do a clean uninstall, you then need to go back and reinstall EACH item one-by-one. Do NOT perform the full install all in one step. Somehow it works out better when each program is installed on it's own. Regardless of this, I saw no major improvements (i.e. Inventor still not fully loading).
The next step that I took was to contact our supplier representative. He had just happened to be talking to my boss (about getting me signed up for some Advanced training) the week all this happened, so my boss just passed him over to me. No good solutions there, but he did have one suggested hotfix from the previous version of Inventor. It comes bundled with a whole bunch of other stuff, but the appropriate .dll that could have been corrupted is entangled within the Microsoft hotfix seen here:
(Autodesk explanation) http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=14487632&linkID=9240617
(Direct to hotfix) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971276
Third, I was put in touch with the Rand/Imaginit Tech Support. We get our software and training through Imaginit. This time it was midly helpful, though not completely. After another round of a suggested clean uninstall/reinstall, Inventor still did not work. So...the tech support rep asked to do a webex to clean up my .Net Framework, since there have been some issues with that lately. The process is here:
1) Clean uninstall
2) .Net Framework 4 Extended removed
3) .Net Framework 4 Client Profile removed
4) .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 removed
5) .Net Framework 3.0 SP2 removed
6) .Net Framework 2.0 SP2 removed
7) Download dotnetfx_cleanup_tool.zip (scan if you like but the page was clean for me)
😎 Run the cleanup tool.
9) From your Autodesk Install disks (or 16Gb flash drive as in my case), run the dotNetFx35setup file.
Located in (D or E):\3rdParty\Net\35SP1\wcu\dotNetFramework.
10) Run dotNetFX4setup from the corresponding folder (as was done with 3.5 above).
11) Reboot.
12) Install any windows updates.
13) Reboot agian.
14) Install Autodesk program by program, one at a time.
Sadly, this too did not work in my case. The final step taken was that I was asked to pretty much spam Autodesk IT with crash reports so that I would be easy to find if someone looked for me. I sent between 5 and 10 crash reports in a matter of about 2 minutes. I think this was last week on Thursday or Wednesday. By friday I had not heard anything. Sunday night apparently I was emailed by Autodesk and they asked for more information. I sent and then copied to my tech rep from Rand/Imaginit and within about three hours I had a solution. See how simple it is when Autodesk finally gets around to helping you...again SMH! I think they need a bigger IT staff.
My end all solution was that in each and every crash report it was found that my driver for my video card was crashing. So...I was sent a link to an Autodesk page with a spiffy new Driver for my Nvidea video card and everything wrks perfect now. Apparently, Inventor 2012 loads in a different manner than previous versions and could cause a crash like this. So...check your drivers for updates people!
