topic Re: Application options Not saving in Inventor Forum

Application options Not saving

CWC_Drawing_Office — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 06:09:17 GMT

Hi all,

I have changed my application settings for Inventor, namely the zoom direction.

Every time I relaunch Inventor the settings go back to default, I have used the Inventor Reset Utility but it has not worked.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated again.

Thanks

Re: Application options Not saving

SharkDesign — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 06:13:54 GMT

Open Inventor, change the settings, close Inventor.

It doesn't save the changes until you restart, so if it crashes you lose the settings.

If not, you need to try something else such as running Inventor in admin mode through Windows.

It might be that you don't have access to write to the folder where the application options are stored.

Re: Application options Not saving

johnsonshiue — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 21:34:24 GMT

Hi! This sounds like a user profile issue or a system process resetting AppData. Inventor App Options stored in

C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\UserApplicationOptions.xml

It sounds like the file might be reset somehow. Please check with your IT department and see if there is a systematic process resetting the file back to default. Or, your user profile does not allow the file to be modified and saved.

Many thanks!

Re: Application options Not saving

CWC_Drawing_Office — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:23:45 GMT

I have access to all the administrative options as I am the sole draughtsman. So I should be able to go into the account settings if necessary.

Is there anything else I can try?

Re: Application options Not saving

CWC_Drawing_Office — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:27:07 GMT

Hi Johnson,

Thanks for the feedback, I will communicate with the relevant people what you have said and hopefully it fixes the problem.

Re: Application options Not saving

SharkDesign — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:31:34 GMT

Maybe set your options.

Close Inventor.

Go to the location of the file.

C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\UserApplicationOptions.xml

Look at the date and time of modification, maybe wait a couple of mins, then reopen inventor.

Check that file to see if it is modified.

I'm not a Windows expert so I might be wrong, but I'm assuming the modified time would stay the same and the time would change if Inventor was resetting them.

Re: Application options Not saving

askx0443 — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:42:46 GMT

I got the same problem but only on one of the PC's. No of the above suggestions are working.

It is only the project folder location there are making problems.

Re: Application options Not saving

RNDinov8r — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 21:44:02 GMT

Have you changed your settings to what you want, then export your settings to a NEW named applications options file?

then close inventor and restart/open.
then import the new Application options file and save.
Close inventor, and restart again...

Does it stick now?

Re: Application options Not saving

CWC_Drawing_Office — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 06:28:33 GMT

Hi there,

I see I never actually accepted a solution to this problem, the problem ended up solving itself as now whatever settings I make saves itself.

If I can give any sort of advice on how to fix this it would be to update inventor and then go back to the installation file you were at before the update e.g. Go to 2022.2 then back to 2022.1.

That is what I did and it solved my problem.

Re: Application options Not saving

Wannes.V — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:15:41 GMT

Hi,

Had simular problem: inventor kept forgetting settings.

Solved it by doing:

Inventor Reset Utility
Then setting up inventor and settings
Then close inventor
Then PC restart

Hope this helps

Re: Application options Not saving

Stéfan13 — Mon, 22 May 2023 06:37:50 GMT

I had the same problem with Inventor 2024 after using the Reset Utility.

After experiencing all the above mentioned methods not resolving the problem the simplest solution is/was as follows:

1. Open your previously exported Application Options XML file as a text file (I used "Notepad").

2. Copy the entire text.

3. Open the default UserApplicationOptions.xml as a text file.

C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 2024\UserApplicationOptions.xml

4. Delete the original text, Paste your copied text and Save.

If the above method doesn't work off the bat:

Export your Application Options to:

C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\Autodesk\Inventor 2024\Preferences

I did both the above.

Voila!

It worked like a charm, for me at least.

Re: Application options Not saving

bbakernisky — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 14:53:46 GMT

I apologize in advance as I know this is an old thread, but I see people are still reporting the issue with 2024 version of the software. We're in an educational/lab environment using inventor 2023 and don't have the ability to know what user profiles will be created prior to their logons, and we also use deep freeze which removes those profiles at each reboot.

That said, I've been able to overwrite the application options xml file in the following location C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\UserApplicationOptions.xml (by pre populating the file and folder structure in Window's "default" user profile), however on first launch it still appears to ignore that xml file, and requires the Inventor to be closed, then re-launched to load those settings.

Is this normal behavior? i.e. is there ANY way to force the settings on the INITIAL load of the software, or does it always require it to be restarted 1 time to apply them?

I also tried the solution listed here https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/tsarticles/ts/1mf3Fhqrpu8W3cOF0JPjsQ.html which is pointing to the the application options xml in the application shortcut, but again, it requires loading the application 1 time (which does not apply the settings), close the application, then relaunch it for it to take.

Lastly, I used the application deployment tool and supplied the default application options (as that appears to support just this), however all that does is copy the file into the templates folder, it doesn't apply them. This appears to apply the settings using the "SOURCEXMLFILEAPPPATH" variable when creating the initial image, however it doesn't appear to actually apply the settings.

So I guess ultimately my question is...what is the correct method to fully enforce the application option on the first launch of Inventor 2023? Because nothing posted here appears to work on the first launch.

Thank you.

Re: Application options Not saving

johnsonshiue — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:53:00 GMT

Hi! I could be wrong. But I thought the App Options would persist on a per user basis. For example, the App Option xml file in %AppData%\Autodesk\Inventor 2023 gets loaded when the user starts up Inventor.

It sounds that the option xml file, "UserApplicationOptions.xml" is being replaced regularly by another process. You may check the last modified date for the file.

Many thanks!

Re: Application options Not saving

bbakernisky — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 19:22:14 GMT

Thanks, it's definitely not loading on the first run for some reason, even with admin rights on a clean windows 11 install. I think I'm getting closer to tracking down the issue though, there is a key in \Software\Autodesk\Inventor\RegistryVersion27.0\System\Preferences\Display that appears to be affecting this behavior.

If I prepopulate those keys in display in the user profile, then the template applies on the first run of the application. If those keys do not exist at first launch, the template requires the application to build them first, and then it will respect the template. I don't know which key in there is the culprit, but for now I'm just prepopulating the entire set of keys under display and it seems to be working correctly now.

It seems almost like on 1st launch it needs to populate/create those keys in the current user registry and then the next application launch it can modify them with the template. Either way it works for me now (in previous years I had to use VMWare DEM to apply these settings on first launch....which essentially force applies the custom registry entries on the first launch of any application), so I'm glad to not have to do that now. I was just under the impression that loading a template would work regardless of if the application had been launched already or not, and was confused why it didn't.

Re: Application options Not saving

clare_cawley — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 22:43:17 GMT

Hello all! I was having a very hard time trying to figure out how to get the application options to save. I tried everything in this thread plus more. Turns out when I had done the utility reset before but then had other issues and had our IT uninstall and re install the program, then I had my issue with application option. Thinking I ruled out the utility reset I was trying all the other options. I was going to post about it but decided to try utility reset again, and it worked perfectly. Everything from dark theme to content library location stayed even as I opened and closed inventor.