what is recommended way to inventory revit addins installed on >75 cpus?

[Anonymous]

I support relatively large revit user group who has permissions to install addins on their local cpus. I am interested in collecting inventory of what addins they have chosen to test and perhaps use in production in order to reduce redundant testing and also to increase shared lessons learned.

I have past experience collecting local autocad customization deployments inventory by combining two passes which included reading windows registry and reading windows folder structure.

Where is most reliable and comprehensive place(s) to look for Revit addins? I have couple ideas but am curious if forum members have quick easy response?

Thanks,

matthew

[jeremytammik]

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for your interesting question.

The official Revit add-in folders to check are specified in the developer guide:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-4FFDB03E-6936-417C-9772-8FC258A261F7

An additional folder is supported for compatibility with the AppStore and other Autodesk products:

Add-in folders -- http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2016/02/bim-360-docs-add-in-folders-stallman-and-the-abc-co...

Solution 1: You could implement a stand-alone app that scans those directories for add-in manifests. There is no guarantee that every valid manifest successfully loads an add-in, though.

Solution 2: Use the UIControlledApplication class LoadedApplications property to check for loaded add-ins at runtime:

http://www.revitapidocs.com/2018/1492b595-f8d9-ff0f-e936-806af51a167d.htm

You could implement your own add-in for checking the existence of other add-ins.

Another utility to be aware of regarding installation issues is the `RevitProductUtility` API provided by the `RevitAddInUtility.dll` assembly:

RevitAddInUtility -- http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/revitaddinutility.html

I don't think that it helps you keep track of add-ins, though.

I hope this helps.

Pleaser let us know how you end up solving this, so I can capture and share the final result on the blog.

I had to do some searching to find these bits and pieces  🙂

Thank you!

Cheers,

Jeremy