Revit 2025 - Missing External Applications

[t_williams2DTYFY]

Hi All, 

I work in the IT team for an enterprise where we deploy out Autodesk to all our computers , including Revit. 

Recently on about 1/3rd of the computers , every time you launch Revit , it provides an error message and says Revit cannot run the external application. I'm at a bit of a loss, I've tried uninstalling (Which is difficult enough with autodesk software...) and re-installing and its about 50/50 on whether you get that error or not. We've also completely re-imaged computers and its the same outcome. 

I believe we deploy Autodesk (Revit included) from a network share using batch files, so this could be the issue. Not sure if Autodesk has guides on deploying their applications Enterprise wide? 

Images attached. 

Thank you.

[Simon_Weel]

I've seen this before. The 'resolution' might be to re-run the installer. Don't remove anything - just re-run the installer. It sometimes takes a couple of times to get everything installed. The home-grown Autodesk installer has it's flaws.

There are some guidelines for enterprise-installs, but it's brief.

Deploying Autodesk software to many computers

Installation Help | Test the deployment and distribute products to workstations | Autodesk

[t_williams2DTYFY]

Hi Simon, 

Cheers for getting back to me. I thought re-running the installer but it didn't seem to be re-running (I've only tried on this one PC so far , will try to re-run the installer on other PC's with the problem too). I've checked the logs and it seems to be related to something called an UPI? I'll attach a screenshot of the logs and a screenshot of where I've found the UPI code in the xml. I'm not too sure on what the UPI code indicates or why it might be erroring out, any ideas?

[Simon_Weel]

As you discovered, the UPI codes reference those add-ons. If you search xml files (Notepad++ search in files-feature) in the image folder for those UPI2 codes, you'll find the xml file for that add-on and it will list the accompanying .msi / exe file. So for those failed installs, you could try to manually installing the missing bits. Or hack together a script that will install all missing components, whether they are missing or not.

A 'clean uninstall' as recommended by Autodesk usually doesn't do a clean uninstall. My experience is there's a lot of leftovers after a 'clean uninstall', making it difficult to re-install stuff. In those cases, I search / delete the registry for every 'Autodesk' line and also search / delete msi files for every 'Autodesk' file. It's messy....

Edit: could very well be you get the message xyz is already installed when you try to install a missing component. In those cases, the Microsoft Troubleshooter could be a help.