Inventor Mesh Enabler does not appear for all users

[brandon_vinson]

I've installed Inventor Mesh Enabler and am having trouble getting it to show for all other users. It will appear in the add-in manager for the user account used to install, but not for any other users on the same computer. I've right clicked and showed hidden add-ins but it still won't appear. 

Our environment doesn't allow admin rights to domain users. Initially I installed this with my admin account, and I was the only one that was able to see it. To test, I then uninstalled it and reinstalled under a different account (domain account, no admin). It showed in the add-in manager for this account, but then would not show in my admin account (the initial install). 

We're running Windows 20H2, fully up to date. This is running Inventor Professional 2021 with the current version 25.40.39700.0000. This behavior was experienced in the version prior as well. I updated and reinstalled the add-in as part of my troubleshooting. 

[m_latz]

The "AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi" is a windows installer package. And windows installer packages have the option to install only for the current user or for all users. The advantage of the "current user" option is, that you do not need admin rights.

This is controlled by the windows installer property ALLUSERS. If this property is omitted in the msi package, the default behavior is "install for the current user only".

To install for all users you have to install the package with:

msiexec /i AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi ALLUSERS=1

In silent mode:

msiexec /i AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi ALLUSERS=1 /qn

regards

Markus

[brandon_vinson]

I tried using that command locally, and also through PDQ Deploy. They will successfully install, and it shows in Programs and Features. However when you launch Inventor Add-In Manager it doesn't show up.
So far the only way it has shown in Add-In Manager is when I install it locally.

[m_latz · Accepted solution]

Hello @brandon_vinson ,

sorry for the delay, today I found some time to test. And yes I had exactly the same problem as you. So I took a closer look to the AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi and I found out "it's a feature not a bug" !

In the msi "LockPermissions" table is defined, that only the user that has installed the msi has access to the ".addin" file(s). But if a user and also Inventor can't read the .addin files, the AddIn can't loaded.

Screenshot from Microsoft Orca:

And screenshot from a "local standard user account" which has not installed the AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi:

To solve the problem you can use "icacls" after the installation to modify the access to the files, so that you have at least "read access".

Or, what I did is, use Orca and delete the entries in the LockPermission table and save the modifications as a transformation. Then install the AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi with this transformation and ALLUSER=1

msiexec /i "C:\Temp\AutodeskMeshEnabler.msi" ALLUSERS=1 TRANSFORMS="C:\Temp\LcsAdskMeshEnablerWoLp.mst" /qn

I attached my transformation I used. You can check the transformation with orca or any other MSI editor.

regards

Markus

[brandon_vinson]

Thank you for your help, permissions were not set up correctly. We went in and took ownership on the file location c:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\Autodesk MeshEnabler.bundle (previously no owner) and added read access to local administrators. After we did that we were able to see and enable the Mesh on multiple user accounts.