Revit 2024 custom deployment - UNC Paths not supported?

[mdhutchinson]

I just this morning created a custom deployment for 2024 on manage.autodesk.com

All, similarly created deployments have all been fine.

Admin privileges required to our network file share are just fine...  

Since when are UNC Paths Not Supported?  

[mdhutchinson · Accepted solution]

Found the following webpage...   Question though, how is this now an issue?   It has always worked with UNC Paths previously.    (This like other issues is the first time this has happened.)

https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/UNC-paths-are-not-...

[Simon_Weel]

That message is thrown when you start CMD from a UNC path - has nothing to do with Revit....

Just informational, nothing to worry about,

[mdhutchinson]

@Simon_Weel 

Sorry, I guess I should have left the fact that Revit was the target installation out of the post.

I have some 20 deployments from software in AEC Collection on the same share dating back to early 2021 all of which successfully run package Installer.exe using UNC path from a batch file (Since Autodesk Started using batch file to launch the install).  This latest created deployment/install is the only one that failed in this way.

There must have been something that has changed how this method is processed. I am wondering if we will see another change from Autodesk when creating Custom Installation as a Deployment?  and maybe these previous deployments will also fail to run now? 

I am wondering if these previous deployments will now also fail?

[Simon_Weel]

Sorry, only looked at the CMD-issue. The screenshot says you need admin permissions to install Revit. That's always been the case, so I guess you started CMD as a regular user? I.e. a non-administrator.

[mdhutchinson]

Having managed, created, and ran Autodesk Deployments for many years, indeed, it was ran as an Admin.  No mistake here.  The message in the dialog box was only poorly written error capturing on Autodesk's part. 

As described in the solution that worked, all I did was to modify the batch to run the local Installer instead of the one found in the deployment at "\\DeployServ\cad\deploy\2024\Revit_2\image\Installer.exe".

Additionally, I made certain the local installer was the latest version. (Autodesk Access Version 1.43.0.186)

This is what worked, no change in the permissions was made.

Interestingly, the error at the outset "UNC paths are not supported, Defaulting to Windows directory." remained... as the path to the Collect.xml was still used ("\\DeployServ\cad\deploy\2024\Revit_2\image\Collect.xml")

I would like to get some clarification from Autodesk on this issue as to why all previous deployments worked and this one initially did not.

[danny.polkinhorn · Accepted solution]

Hi Mike, found this thread while looking for something else.  Indeed, Simon's suggestion that this is a security warning for CMD when starting a batch file from a UNC path is correct.  This is not an Autodesk message, but a Windows one.  As long as the user running the installation has local admin rights and read rights on the UNC path, it should work as expected.
The link in the Help document describes how to disable the UNC path warning.  From Stack Overflow:  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9013941/how-to-run-batch-file-from-network-share-without-unc-pat...