Editing ARG file for AutoCAD Deployment

[Djacob62]

So yes, I don't like it that they removed the ability to add search paths when creating deployment files but not much I can do about that. . . 

I'm reading up about specifying the ARG file.

But I have lots of questions.

It almost seems like I need to install AutoCAD 2023 first, customize it, export the ARG file then create the deployment to use that ARG file?

I saw a thread that mentioned editing an existing ARG file from a previous version and replacing all the text for AutoCAD version.  Has anyone been successful with this?

If I did edit an existing ARG file, can I omit a good portion of it and only include the sections that specify search paths, location of enterprise CUIX file, Template files and locations, etc?

This seems so cumbersome - I've been using and installing AutoCAD since Release 9.  It sure beats installing it with (14) 3.5" floppy disks like the olden days but being able to specify all of this when creating a deployment was sooooo easy to do.  Glad I'm close to retirement 🙂

Any thoughts or suggestions would greatly help.

Thanks.

Don

[Simon_Weel · Accepted solution]

 I don't like it that they removed the ability to add search paths when creating deployment

Yes, really annoying. As a work-around, I created an alternative acad.lsp that sets the paths and have this file copied to the user data cache by the installer script. So the first time AutoCAD is run, it will load the local acad.lsp, set the paths and restart. There's a corporate acad.lsp on an network share for all other kinds of things. Since this corporate acad.lsp is in a Search path preceding the local path, AutoCAD will no longer execute the local acad.lsp.

[Djacob62]

Great idea - thanks.  Our acad.lsp is also on a network share and in one of the paths that was set in the deployment file.

The whole concept of using the .ARG file seems so cumbersome.  Obviously the folks at Autodesk that come up with this stuff have never installed AutoCAD in a corporate environment before lol.

[Simon_Weel]

The whole concept of using the .ARG file seems so cumbersome.

Yes - it baffles me why Autodesk, when they decided to make 'windows-only' software a long time ago, they still don't (and probably never will) use all them Windows tools like Group Policies. Would have made life a lot easier...

[ebrisse5]

Was this for a 2024 deployment package? We are working on that and I can't even find any .lsp files in the package at all! It feels like they changed a lot in this last version and wiped away a lot of the customizations we are accustomed to using. Any helps with finding the .lsp file locations, or recommendations for us to create our own will be greatly appreciated. 

[Simon_Weel]

You have to copy any additional files yourself. You probably use a script for the installation, so just add some lines to copy necessary files.