Professional vs Basic
1. If I run Vault Pro Server installer on the same machine that has Vault Basic Server i.e. Machine 1, will it migrate the vault? My reseller tells me that I will have to first remove basic then install professional - seems very odd to hear.
No, you do not need to remove the Vault Basic server before installing the Vault Professional Server. The Vault Professional server will remove Vault Basic automatically and migrate the databases.
2. ADMS is also installed on Machine 1 - will this create problems?
ADMS is Vault Server. That is just the application name. This is how Vault Server is managed.
3. The biggest hitch I have is that we are on a peer to peer network running windows 10 on all machines. Will I have to install Windows Server OS for Vault professional server on machine 1? This is an added complexity I'm not probably ready for
Vault Professional is not supported on a desktop operating system. It does require a server operating system to be supported. However, it will install on your Windows 10 OS.
4. In the worst case, if I buy a machine 3 and install Windows server on it and then Vault pro server on it too, will machine 1 and machine 2 work with this new machine 3 (without changing stuff on their end?) . I know this is a windows OS question, but worth asking. I don't want to have a windows server environment for the whole office of 15 people (out of which 2 are in design)
Vault Professional Server will only allow Vault Professional clients to connect to it. So regardless of the OS you install Vault Professional Server on, your client machines will require Vault Professional Client to be installed. Before installing Vault Professional Client, you must uninstall Vault Basic Client manually.
5. In Vault pro - can I control who can print, download, view?
Vault Professional has permission settings that Vault Basic does not have. You can control who can download and view a file. If they can't download or view it, they cannot print it.
6. From the thin clients, can I give view only access to ipt and dwg without them having the ability to download it?
Yes, but it requires the the IPT and DWG files have associated DWF visualization files. You can remove the permission to download the native IPT and DWG but allow the user to view the visualization file.
so can I install Vault pro server on Windows 10 desktop? How about Windows 11 desktop? No need for a Windows Server OS?
Could you install it? Yes, but you will be in an unsupported environment for Vault Professional. I recommend installing Vault Professional Server on a server OS so that you are fully supported in case of a problem.
even if they download a file, can I stop them from printing it? Is there a screenshot ot webpage that can explain what security settings I can have on a folder level?
Once the file is downloaded, Vault has no control over it. Therefore, you cannot prevent the user from printing it.
Security settings are required on the file, not at the folder level, and there are many combinations that could be used.
To understand how Vault Professional security works, you should review my Autodesk University class.
Security Awakens: Defending Against the First Order | Autodesk University
