Civil 3D Exporting Settings \ Deployment Issues

[nbawden]

I am having trouble effectively deploying Civil 3D to multiple computers.

Like most(?) users we can't use Civil 3D in its vanilla state. We need to make the following adjustments on each computer:

1) Options - Files tab - add &\or change paths under Support File Search Path, Trusted Locations, Printer File Support Path & Template Settings

2) Options - Display tab - Change all backgrounds to black (2D model space, Sheet/layout, Block Editor) and turn off "Display paper background and Display printable area) - I know this is not critical but everyone wants this

3) Load several LISP routines

4) Customisation - Shortcut Menus - Context menu for default mode - add several frequently used commands to this menu including above mentioned LISPs

Prior to 2014 we (semi) successfully did this by:

1) Exporting the profile info in Options to an ARG file that was reimported on destination computer (also required editing desktop shortcut to refer to this imported profile)

2) Copying and replacing default C3D.cuix file on all destination computers with modified one from configured source.

This method worked fine and only took about 2 minutes per computer. The main negative with this method used to be that the system could not handle a different user logging onto a computer - it would require this process to be repeated.

With 2014 & 2015 this method is even more ineffectual because of the following issues:

1) Trusted Locations adjustments were not being included with the ARG export and had to manually be entered again on all computers

2) Autodesk Vehicle Tracking partial CUI would fail to load - apparently this is because of a hardcoded path that is user specific

3) Lisp files are not automatically loaded - they need to be manually reloaded on each computer (1st time only)

Vanilla AutoCAD has the "Migrate Custom Settings" routine that might handle all of this but not Civil 3D (which is very frustrating)

How does everyone else do their deployments? How would people suggest we do our deployments considering the type of changes we want make? We are willing to keep using the same system if we can solve the trusted location and AVT issue but it would be nice to make the configuration even quicker and cater for different users logging onto a computer.

[nbawden]

I am having trouble effectively deploying Civil 3D to multiple computers.

Like most(?) users we can't use Civil 3D in its vanilla state. We need to make the following adjustments on each computer:

1) Options - Files tab - add &\or change paths under Support File Search Path, Trusted Locations, Printer File Support Path & Template Settings

2) Options - Display tab - Change all backgrounds to black (2D model space, Sheet/layout, Block Editor) and turn off "Display paper background and Display printable area) - I know this is not critical but everyone wants this

3) Load several LISP routines

4) Customisation - Shortcut Menus - Context menu for default mode - add several frequently used commands to this menu including above mentioned LISPs

Prior to 2014 we (semi) successfully did this by:

1) Exporting the profile info in Options to an ARG file that was reimported on destination computer (also required editing desktop shortcut to refer to this imported profile)

2) Copying and replacing default C3D.cuix file on all destination computers with modified one from configured source.

This method worked fine and only took about 2 minutes per computer. The main negative with this method used to be that the system could not handle a different user logging onto a computer - it would require this process to be repeated.

With 2014 & 2015 this method is even more ineffectual because of the following issues:

1) Trusted Locations adjustments were not being included with the ARG export and had to manually be entered again on all computers

2) Autodesk Vehicle Tracking partial CUI would fail to load - apparently this is because of a hardcoded path that is user specific

3) Lisp files are not automatically loaded - they need to be manually reloaded on each computer (1st time only)

Vanilla AutoCAD has the "Migrate Custom Settings" routine that might handle all of this but not Civil 3D (which is very frustrating)

How does everyone else do their deployments? How would people suggest we do our deployments considering the type of changes we want make? We are willing to keep using the same system if we can solve the trusted location and AVT issue but it would be nice to make the configuration even quicker and cater for different users logging onto a computer.

[ccl_cad_manager]

We had several of those issues when we started using a company standard ARG.
Solved some of them by standarizing where the support files were kept.  Our solution was to put them on the network and point everyone there.  You could do the same thing local and bring those "user" folders out to a Standard C: Path not in the users.

As for the auto loading lisps, you can add them to your acaddoc.lsp and make sure the path is in your standard support folders.

I'm at a loss on the trusted sites.

[nbawden]

Thanks for your thoughts but unfortunately we avoid network drives because we have remote users in small towns relying on VPN access to our server.

We found performance was too woeful to rely on accessing server based files over the VPN so now they only access our server for licence access. Everyone maintains a copy of files locally (support files, plot styles & templates) that is updated from the server when need be via a batch file run by each user at my request.

Also with Autodesk Vehicle Tracking (AVT) there appears to be a hard coded user path that is not amenable to the sharing of CUIs that results in that partial CUI not loading. Wasn't an issue with its predecessor AutoTrack - it has only occurred since Autodesk purchased the software and rebadged it.

Agree that the acaddoc.lsp or acad.lsp files are the way to go (the startup suite doesn't appear to be fully reliable). Just need to determine whether we should just load the lisps via acad.lsp as I don't see the benefit of doing it every time a drawing opens with acaddoc.lsp

[dgorsman]

LISP is per-document, so you have to load them with every file they are needed in - hence the ACADDOC.LSP file.

I'm not quite getting your definition of "sharing of CUIs" here, as it sounds you are dealing with singular users?  CUIx (Main, Enterprise) can be located pretty much anywhere.  Don't get hung up on what a network should be for support files.  You aren't limited to your VPN: it could be a partitioned drive, VPN drive connection with offline files, or just a standardized folder on the hard drive.

[nbawden]

By sharing of CUIs I merely meant the creation of a company standard CUI (C3D.cuix) that is copied to replace all default C3D.cuix files on all computers.

[Dylan_Corkill]

I think something that all responders to your post have missed is that your ARG files are not loading your Trusted Locations.   That is something that I see as the biggest issue and we are starting to have it as well.    I have even gone into our ARG files using notepad and looked at what is actually shown and it looks correct however when I load the profile I have a completely different list.   In fact the list doesn't even match the default trusted sources that come with the out of the box profiles.

Have you had any success is resolving this issue?

Thanks

Dylan

[nbawden]

Nope - never did solve the issue - completely gave up on ARGs and went down the path of utilising acad.lsp & acaddoc.lsp for configuration. For us ARGs are only useful as temporary configuration repository for a specific user.

[m_latz]

I suppose you did a deployment to install AutoCAD Civil 3D.

If so, you can adapt everything you need after the deployment  was created with the deployment wizard from autodesk.

Just adapt/modify the created transformations (.mst).

And because the installer from Autodesk does a "per machine" and a "per user" installation all required modifications are done also for every user (when user log on).

Requirement is only to know a few things about Microsoft Windows Installer technology to do that.

regards

Markus

[Dylan_Corkill]

So I've been dealing with Level 1 Subscription tech support for the last week on the this issue.   Things are not going well.  Even after making it quite clear that i'm having an issue with importing profiles it has taken a week for support to comprehend this.  So hopefully they will escalate it up the chain like I have asked and I might beable to provide more info in the near future.

How were you able to make the changes in the acad and acaddoc lsp files?  I might have to go this route but don't really know where to start.

Thanks

Dylan

[m_latz]

---

@Dylan_Corkill wrote:

I think something that all responders to your post have missed is that your ARG files are not loading your Trusted Locations.   That is something that I see as the biggest issue and we are starting to have it as well.    I have even gone into our ARG files using notepad and looked at what is actually shown and it looks correct however when I load the profile I have a completely different list.   In fact the list doesn't even match the default trusted sources that come with the out of the box profiles.

Have you had any success is resolving this issue?

Thanks

Dylan

---

I have just tried this in AutoCAD 2015 64-Bit English SP2 and I could load modified trusted locations.

Is Civil 3D different ? I did not tried with this version.

regards

Markus

[Dylan_Corkill]

I haven't had any issues in Autocad or Map like this one.   I follow the exact same process for setting up profiles in all 3 products.   Autocad and Map worked perfectly but Civil seems to have an issue with it.   Worked fine in all our 2014 products as well.

I tried reinstalling civil with our deploy and it was still happening so now I'm doing a complete reinstall from scratch with the downloaded installation files from Autodesk.  Just incase it's something in the deploy.

Thanks

Dylan

[m_latz]

Okay I create a deployment to test the issues you have. Just to be sure:

AutoCAD Civil 3D 64-Bit English ?

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit English ?

regards

Markus

[m_latz]

Okay looks like Civil 3D could not read his own TRUSTEDPATHS variable. If you create a new profile or import one, then the value for TRUSTEDPATHS is created as type REG_EXPAND_SZ. But in all default profiles this value is REG_SZ. If you change the type of the registry value, then AutoCAD could read.

Workaround to fix: Use only import / export registry functions to deploy profiles or write a small arx program which check on every start of AutoCAD the type of the value and change if necessary.