Mandatory Profiles?

[FiveLiterGT]

Hi all,

I am running Autocad 2004 in several large PC labs at a University. Up until now, we have used a local profile called "user" that students were free to log in to.

Recently, we switched to a new domain login system on a samba server so we could require each user to enter a unique login name. However, all users share one mandatory profile so they cannot change system settings on the machine.

Unfortunately, Autocad will no longer start on a domain login. It gives this error: FATAL ERROR: Invalid Configuration path\filename: C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2004\R16.0\enu

The program still works locally. The local profile and the mandatory domain profile are identical. Autocad support told me that the program will not work with mandatory profiles. I find this hard to believe.. surely I'm not the only Autocad user that has a reason for using mandatory profiles.

Please help! Thanks!

[Paul Minnaert]

Is it that it can't use read only directorys? I just chnaged all path in the
users registry to point to another place. Part of that is a read only place,
they all share. Another part are the things they are allowed to change, that
is in the users homedir on the network. No need to copy over the network
when logging in/out.

--
Regards,

Paul Minnaert,








"FiveLiterGT" <nospam@address.withheld> wrote in message
news:17522754.1090266771259.JavaMail.jive@jiveforu m1.autodesk.com...

Hi all,

I am running Autocad 2004 in several large PC labs at a University. Up
until now, we have used a local profile called "user" that students were

free to log in to.

Recently, we switched to a new domain login system on a samba server so we
could require each user to enter a unique login name. However, all users

share one mandatory profile so they cannot change system settings on the
machine.

Unfortunately, Autocad will no longer start on a domain login. It gives
this error: FATAL ERROR: Invalid Configuration path\filename: C:\Documents

and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD
2004\R16.0\enu

The program still works locally. The local profile and the mandatory
domain profile are identical. Autocad support told me that the program will

not work with mandatory profiles. I find this hard to believe.. surely I'm
not the only Autocad user that has a reason for using mandatory profiles.

Please help! Thanks!

[dstein]

If there was ever a product perfect for classrooms it has to be VMware. Most training facilities are switching to that or VirtualPC to allow for snapshot rollbacks after each class session. Eliminates all the overhead of managing permissions and system states, etc. involved with classroom environments (and test labs).

No, I don't work for (or own stock in) VMware or Microsoft or any reseller either, but I was struggling with the same mess and this strategy has worked for my company very well. Even the local MS training centers here are using VirtualPC to make workstation and server setups faster and easier.

If you can't get the budget to buy four licenses (about $90 each I believe), you're back to hacking the O/S or AutoCAD. The issue is how Autodesk modified AutoCAD to achieve Windows XP logo compliance and the use of the user profile folder tree. If it wants to save system state changes there and you lock the user out of it, you've got to tell AutoCAD to put them somewhere else. You can configure some of those paths in the AutoCAD profile (OPTIONS/Profiles) and export the ARG file for use on the other three, but that's been dicy from my experience. Another issue is HKCU registry permissions. If they're left with default security, it works fine, but if you start locking that out also, you'll have major problems.

[Cy Shuster]

Solutions that roll back changes are perfect for training facilities.
However, you should be aware that the standalone, locked versions of many
releases of AutoCAD since 2000 may be incompatible with those solutions.
The network license is a much better solution.

The standalone license was designed for users with just a few seats, without
a network, and thus relies on the integrity of the PC and the OS.
Authorization is done on each individual PC. It's also a flexible license,
able to be moved by the user from PC to PC (with the PLU) without
reauthorization. For this reason, the license can't be rolled back to a
previous version. Similarly, hardware emulations like VMWare are not
compatible because they allow low-level debugging and tampering.

Training facilities usually have many seats, and usually have networks.
They have a higher administrative burden due to the necessity of restoring
the environment regularly. Authorization is done just once on the server,
for all seats, and the server can be kept physically secure from users. The
network license has no dependencies on the state of the individual PC, and
is therefore fully compatible with rollback products, including complete
partition image restores.

Additionally, training facilities sometimes have the additional requirement
of wanting to allow a student to take a license home for further work, but
don't necessarily have full trust in the student to return the license
(unlike a typical business case). When giving the student the standalone
license with the PLU, there's no way to be sure it will come back. The
network license in AutoCAD 2004 and 2005 allows "license borrowing" for a
limited time. When the time expires, the license is restored to the license
server, whether or not you ever hear from the borrower again.

--Cy--

"dstein" <nospam@address.withheld> wrote in message
news:26623046.1090650641898.JavaMail.jive@jiveforu m2.autodesk.com...

If there was ever a product perfect for classrooms it has to be VMware.
Most training facilities are switching to that or VirtualPC to allow for

snapshot rollbacks after each class session. Eliminates all the overhead of
managing permissions and system states, etc. involved with classroom
environments (and test labs).

No, I don't work for (or own stock in) VMware or Microsoft or any reseller
either, but I was struggling with the same mess and this strategy has worked

for my company very well. Even the local MS training centers here are using
VirtualPC to make workstation and server setups faster and easier.

If you can't get the budget to buy four licenses (about $90 each I
believe), you're back to hacking the O/S or AutoCAD. The issue is how

Autodesk modified AutoCAD to achieve Windows XP logo compliance and the use
of the user profile folder tree. If it wants to save system state changes
there and you lock the user out of it, you've got to tell AutoCAD to put
them somewhere else. You can configure some of those paths in the AutoCAD
profile (OPTIONS/Profiles) and export the ARG file for use on the other
three, but that's been dicy from my experience. Another issue is HKCU
registry permissions. If they're left with default security, it works fine,
but if you start locking that out also, you'll have major problems.

[dstein]

Good points Cy! I did kind of stray from the original issue, so I apologize for that. I haven't had any trouble with AutoCAD on VMware in our test labs, either network client or standalone, but that's not to say it will work in all situations.

[FiveLiterGT]

Thanks for the suggestions / comments, everyone. I fixed the problem- I came in the other day to find Autocad 2005 sitting on my desk. And guess what? It seems to work with mandatory profiles.

VMWare sounds like a neat idea. I saw a similar product that attached to the IDE chain inside the machine that redirected all hard drive write activity to a temporary partition. When the user reboots the machine- poof, all changes get erased. Expensive solution, but effective.

Thanks again for the help, but file my original question under "unresolved."