Version updates under DEEPFREEZE (Faronics) conditions

[Anonymous]

Our college uses DeepFreeze from Faronics to protect student workstations from non-authorized changes/downloads/installs.  When frozen, the student workstation reverts to original pristine condition upon restart.  Only when unit is "thawed" and Fusion invoked will the workstation receive and keep the new version.

Since Fusion updates automatically when online, any/all version update attempts are effectively rejected upon restart and students working on their personal computers with the most recent version are unable to open/process their "home" files on the college workstation with the outdated version. Since Fusion seems determined to frequently update versions, this requires much work to maintain version currency as each workstation has to be thawed, updated, and re-frozen.

Current installed version for students at school is 2.0.2865.

Questions:

1. Does each version release require that the previous installed version be updated? Are there any work-arounds to this manually intensive task?

2. How do you propose to solve this issue going forward with built-in backwards compatibility?  In the education market, this is a major issue and more and more systems are being protected with DeepFreeze.

3. Other ideas/suggestions?

CP

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Welcome to the Fusion 360 Community!

Just to check, have you seen our lab installation version of Fusion 360 here. Unlike our streamer install - this installer does NOT update automatically and needs to be pushed out by an IT admin to the lab. The other benefit is that the installation does not root into the local user profile, but instead to all users so that the students do not need admin permissions to run the software. Feel free to check our guide on the lab install here and let me know if you have any questions! I can also send you our technical documentation on the lab installation as well. Once you sign up, there should be an option to be emailed when a big update comes out as well as the download for the update. 

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

James,

Yes, thanks for your response.

The lab installation version is installed on my student workstations, and a handy-dandy .bat file (attached) works very well for installing/updating workstations as Administrator.

To perform original install, I copied he Fusion Downloader file to the download folder, then copied .bat file to the Administrator desktop, then simply "run as administrator". After testing a few machines, I re-freeze.

When it's time to update, I simply thaw the workstations, sign on as Administrator, and run the .bat again.

But making the time to update 178 workstations in a variety of labs and classrooms every time a version is released is not an easy task.

Thanks for your response.

CP

[dan.banach]

Hi Chuck, I work in the Education group at Autodesk, and I just sent you a private message. Looking forward to connecting with you.

Thanks,

-Dan

[Anonymous]

Dan, 

Similar to Chuck, I run a lab within an educational institution which uses a Deep freeze system. I am looking to gain a bit more control over the IT component of my lab, but at the moment the inability to receive updates is proving to be quite an issue. Students accessing the single user version of Fusion 360 they have downloaded at home are not able to work on their projects in our classroom due to compatibility issues. I was also unable to find a function that would allow a user to "save down" a version similar to Adobe products. I contacted Fusion 360 Support to see if they may have any in sight and the referenced me to this thread. There was also mention of a pilot "fix" for this deep freeze issue which I would like to hear more about. 

All in all, we could not be happier with Fusion 360, we just need to get over this compatibility deep freeze issue and we will be all set. 

Thank you in advance for any advice/ insight you may be able to provide. 

CL. 

[dan.banach]

HI CL,

I just sent you a private message.

-Dan

[Anonymous]

I am having the same issue with my lab computers. I however do not use the lab installer as I only have 40 odd computers. 

[bklatt]

I also run Deep Freeze Enterprise and need help with this issue.