AutoCAD 2014 Raster looking for MSI on first run

[sfortin-smcc]

We have an issue.  We install Autodesk Education Suite 2014 and then log in as another user.  When that user fires up AutoCAD Electrical or Mechanical or regular AutoCAD they are prompted to browse to the initial location where I installed Autodesk Education Suite from.  This location is not always available to students and I'm not sure why all necessary files weren't copied down to the PC during installation.  Why does it still need the install location to lean on?

[asburyj]

The basic problem here is Raster ties itself to one of the installed AutoCAD products as the place where it creates it's configuration files for the user but if that user has not actually launched that AutoCAD version, the directory where raster wants to write to doesn't exist and it can't create the configuration files for the user. You can resolve this by launching that version of AutoCAD. You can find details on this in the blog post linked below

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/02/please-wait-while-windows-configures-raster-messa...

[dgorsman]

Installation is done in two stages, due to the potential for multiple users on a single computer.  The primary installer handles the files and per-computer registry settings.  The first time the program is run a secondary installer is run which ensures the user-specific files and registry settings are present.  If you run the program with limited rights ie. Win user profile and registry cannot be modified, then the secondary installer can fail, or only be retained for the current session.  If the program is run again, the program doesn't find the user-specific files and registry settings so it tries to run the secondary installer again.

This can be very tricky in an educational environment with the greater limitations on access rights, automated user profile resets, and other tools in play.  You can provide read-only access to the deployment you created for these circumstances, or temporarily elevate rights for the first time a user runs the software.  More detailed solutions are probably better done by sitting down with your reseller and hammering out a standard install and first-run procedure.