To run most Autodesk software properly it is required that the user has local administrative rights. Sometimes, allowing users to have full administrative rights to the local machine is not possible. This will enable any company not wishing to give their users local admin rights to ensure that they have access to the correct keys and folders to run Inventor and AutoCAD properly. Power User rights are required for this to work.
Please note: This is an advanced technique. Please ask your IT crowd to do this if you're not sure about any of the steps. Under no circumstance does ADA CADPartners Pty Ltd assume responsibility in the unlikely event of any possible loss of data that may be incurred from use of this process.
Also Note: Autodesk Product Support in Singapore have also come up with a way to get around this by allowing the users to run as administrator, without displaying the password. For information and support on this method, please see this blog article. It's worth investigating all of the solutions available, so you can make the choice that's right for your environment.
Install Inventor as a local admin on the workstation.
Run Inventor once.
Warning! Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows® registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft has provided a wealth of critical information you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support. Use the Microsoft® Registry Editor only at your own risk and only after backing up the registry as well as the system.dat and user.dat files as outlined in ARTICLE-ID: Q132332 "How to Back Up the Registry" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. Additional information about the registry is also contained in the Help topics in the Microsoft Registry Editor.
Export all current user registry entries for Autodesk (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk) (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Export the CURRENT_USER registry keys for Autodesk
Log off the local administrator account.
Log onto the user profile and import the registry entries from the previous step (Figure 2).
Figure 2: import the previously exported registry keys into the registry when logged in as user (with Power User rights).
Make sure the user group policy \Administrative Templates\Start menu and Taskbar\Do not keep history of recently opened documents? is not enabled on your Active Directory Server.
Users must also be granted modify access to the \Documents and Settings\ directory on the workstations (Figure 3).
Figure 3: set Documents and Settings folder permissions "Modify" for the group that the user is a member of / user name itself.
The user should now have the correct permissions to run Inventor properly.
Install AutoCAD from the local Administrator account
While still logged in as Adminsitrator: - Go to My Computer, C:\, Documents and Settings. - Right-click Documents and Settings and select Properties. - Select the Security tab, and alter the security options to allow FULL CONTROL for: -- Everyone -- Users -- Power Users - Select OK.
Run AutoCAD ONCE from the administrator account. This writes some necessary information to the registry.
Log off and log back in as a student (restricted) profile.
Run AutoCAD -- when logging on for the first time, and running AutoCAD, each user will be presented with 'Please wait while AutoCAD loads' message. This is to write the necessary program components to each computer. Even though they don't have access to C:\, it will look at the permissions on the Documents & Settings folder and allow the process to complete.
Result: Now when a student logs on and start AutoCAD, it will prompt with the 'Please wait while AutoCAD loads...' message; however it will only occur once for each user.
For example:
- Student A logs on and starts AutoCAD. Waits for the 'Please wait' message to complete and AutoCAD to load fully. Student A then closes AutoCAD and logs off.
- Student B logs on and starts AutoCAD. The same 'Please wait' message needs to be completed for this user as well. Student B then logs off.
- Student A logs back onto same computer, and starts AutoCAD. This time Student A is not presented with the please wait message - it just starts, as they have already let the necessary user-specific information be written to the computer last time they started AutoCAD. Student A will never see the 'Please wait' message for AutoCAD on this computer again.
- Student A logs onto a different computer and starts AutoCAD. Student A is now again presented with the 'Please wait' message, as they are on a different computer on which the process hasn't been completed.
With roaming restricted profiles, about all we can do to minimise the impact is encourage students/restricted users to log onto the same machine each time. However, over time, you will see this message appear less and less, as each student logs on and loads AutoCAD over time as the process needs to be completed once for each profile on each computer.
