AutoCAD 2018 activation failure if documents folder is redirected to network

[Anonymous]

When I activate AutoCAD 2018 on a Windows 10 Pro (build 1703) machine with a single user license the activation window displays 2 script failures and stops responding.

On this machine the documents folder is redirected to a network location a Windows 2012 server via group policy. When I disable this redirection and set the documents folder to the local disk that activation succeeds.

After activation I've reactivated documents folder redirection and AutoCAD still starts up properly.

I guess this is a bug in the activation software?

[Otto]

Hello znrbv and welcome to the Autodesk community!

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[Mark.Lancaster]

If you are redirecting the user profile information Autodesk does not support this.  

[Anonymous]

I'm not redirecting the complete user profile (roaming profile) but only the documents folder.

So your saying AutoCAD 2018 does not support network paths? This just seems to me like a bug in the license activation code.

I would have expected this answer about 20 years ago but not in 2017 for a product that costs almost € 1800,- a year! Shame on you Autodesk. Please fix this!

[abblomquist]

Yes, please fix this. We also redirect all of our user's documents folder to a network folder.

[squeakstar]

Autodesk should support redirected folders it's a common thing in business environments to keep users documents backed up to a server.

THIS used to work up until 2018 versions, the latest version of the Autodesk app running in the background is a complete joke when the 2017 version worked fine with redirected folders, given some minor tweaks to make your server's redirected folder destination a trusted source.

This worked for us prior to 2018.. Internet Explorer > Internet Options > Security > Local Intranet > Sites > Advanced

Add your file server to the Intranet sites zone like this...

file://servername

if you use DFS shares add this too..

file://*.domain.suffix (eg *.domain.com)

So Autodesk.. are you asking us to completely redesign our computer/servers/network around your products you can't be arsed to program around, yet continue to force us down lucrative subscription contracts AND remove existing features that worked happily previously?

Take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself are you working for the benefit of customers or just your own money grabbing existence?

[simon_thwaites]

This really needs to be sorted.

Enterprise software for enterprises... we need enterprise features. We're paying enterprise prices.

This happens in other Autodesk software too (Trueview recently had this problem).

FYI redirection does work if you don't have a . in the username. Obviously the solution on the knowledge base is to remove the dot, not helpful.

Why does this even need to rely on a location in the documents folder - im sure it wants to save there at some point but come on...