Revit 2012 install fails

[Darrin_Orndorff]

I have been having trouble installing RAC 2012 on a few computers running window 7 64. I have a deployment created which has worked fine for 5 computers but 3 others won't install. It installs Design Review, then indicates it is installing Direct X, Faro SK, and MS VSTA, it starts the process of installing RAC 2012 where it says it is configuring. Then it just stops, removes the Design Review icon from the desktop and nothing has been installed. No folders, nothing in the registry, nothing. Attached are the log files.

I have read several other posts and tried to clean out everything out, one of these computers is new and never had any autodesk products loaded. I have tried to reinstall some of the windows distributables on another post. Still the same result.

Any ideas out there,

Darrin

[DannyHubbard]

Looking at the Revit log you will see the error.

MSI (s) (DC:A0) [18:23:43:155]: Product: Revit Architecture 2012 - - Error 1327.Invalid Drive: J:\

Could be that you set content to install to a J: drive that isn't mapped on these workstations thus causing the install to fail.

[Darrin_Orndorff]

Thank you for your response. The invalid J drive is interesting as that is a server drive where we are putting our RAC content. It is mapped and accessible.

However, we were finally able to install the software by changing our user account control settings, "To never notify". Don’t really know why it worked, it just so happens that I asked someone else to help trouble shoot and he typically sets that to none to speed his install process. I had left it at default. At any rate, we were able to get it installed. Thanks for your help.

[chtxsa]

I had been having the same problem, but was finally able to fix it by modyfing the deployment to use UNC naming conventions rather than mapped drives when configuring the file locations for templates, content, etc (i.e. \\server\share\ instead of X:\). Even though all our computers are set up with mapped drives to our server, the deployment just couldn't follow it for some reason.

[TravisNave]

When creating deployments, you should *always* use UNC pathing rather than mapped drives.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=7824284&linkID=9240617

[chtxsa]

The link you shared isn't really related to the problem. The issue is this: In the deployment creation, the installation location and Admin image is set to use UNC (the deployment creator doesn't give you a choice about this), however when you set shared locations for the template and content, by default it will use mapped drive locations, which may cause the installation to fail. By changing those paths you can circumvent the installation error.

I had sucessfully used mapped drive locations in previous deployments of Revit going back to 2008. This solution is not immediately obvious from the generic error code given in the log file.

[TravisNave]

I agree.  I only provided the link as a means to show that Autodesk dictates the usage of UNC paths over mapped drives.  You make a good point.  Hopefully this will help other people in the future.  Thanks!

[rrountree]

Thanks for the post.  This is quite frustrating as I just ran successfull deployments of ACA2012 on 32bit machines using mapped drives to shared folders.  However, when doing the same with our 64bit machines, you have to use the UNC names or the deployment fails.  The 32 bit machines used winXP and the 64 bit machines use Win 7. 

Only an issue if you have a few hundred lisp routines with a drive designation in them.  IE R:

I guess I can write a new routine that points to the old location. 

Regards.

[Greg.Eisen]

Ran across this issue deploying Autocad 2012 to users.

My specific issue had to do with the mapping of my users' My Documents folder as I have it remapped to a location on one of our servers.

Do the Following:

Hit Start, Run and type Regedit

Find the following HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\User Shell Folders

In the right pane - see if there are  any entries which has any other letters besides C (your OS folder) modify data to the UNC path of that mapped drive letter.

So for example my My Documents location was something like "P:My Documents", I had to change it to "\\Server1\Data\Bob\My Documents"

Problem Solved.

[Anonymous]

Using UNC paths is a HORRIBLE idea from an IT/Maintenance perspective!  I use DFS-R to switch which server our workstations are pointed at in order to do maintenance on a server all the time.  Using UNC paths would make that impossible.  Servers do not last forever so every time hardware is replaced you now have to repath everything?  On the other hand, I can map an R drive (or whatever letter) from any server I choose, and like I said, then use DFS to switch that midstream and reboot our primary file server without our users ever knowing anything about it at all.  I despise that Revit uses them internally as well.  Just my two cents.

[chtxsa]

Whether or not it's a horrible idea from an IT perspective is irrelevant. It's what Revit uses, so the deployment must follow it or else the installation will fail. Older versions of Revit used to be able to recognize mapped drives, but this is no longer the case.