Up and Ready

Building Design Suite Standard 2014 + USB Media + 32 bit

If you need the Building Design Suite 2014 for 32 bit and you have USB media kit, the 32 bit installers will not be there. 

You will need to download the Suite from the Subscription Center or from the Matthew, our Virtual Agent (#3).

Reference blog posts:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/05/building-design-suite-premiumultimate-2014-autocad-2014-windows-xp.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/05/microsoft-windows-and-the-price-of-progress.html

Where is Fusion 2014 ?

Inventor Fusion is not one of the products listed when you try to install from the 2014 install media.

In its actual form, it has been discontinued and its replacement is Fusion 360 on our cloud platform.

Good news!

We released an updated version for 2014 release called Inventor Fusion 2013 R1.

It is available from the following address http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/fusion and it is free to all customers.

A note for users running Fusion 2013, please check out this known issue:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/04/inventor-fusion-2013-error-no-license-available-.html

Thank you to Kevin Schneider for clarifying.

AutoCAD + Norton Utilities = AutoCAD secondary installer when running Norton Utilities

Just a note that this issue will happen if you install AutoCAD and Norton Utilities. 

1.  Install AutoCAD, in this case it was AutoCAD 2013 LT.

2.  Install Norton Utilities.

When you run Norton Utilites, you will get a AutoCAD secondary installer and you need to cancel the secondary installer for AutoCAD to run Norton Utilities.  There is a brief note about it here:

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Norton-utilities-interfere-with-autocad/td-p/801560

To repair the issue, you will need to use Microsoft Fix It to remove the 2 products and reinstall AutoCAD.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/06/windows-the-basics-of-using-microsoft-fix-it.html

Here is another interesting secondary installer issue:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/09/autocad-map-3d-2012-other-applications-cause-map-3d-secondary-installer-to-launch.html

Thanks to Richard Conn for confirming this issue and sharing the tip with the community.

Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate 2014 + AutoCAD 2014 + Windows XP

If you look at the 2014 System Requirements for Suites here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=16490792

You will notice that Windows XP 32 bit is only supported in the Building Design Suite Standard 2014.

What happens if you need AutoCAD 2014 on XP and you own Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate 2014?  

The USB Media and the installers provided are 64 bit only so you will need to download AutoCAD 2014 32 bit via our Virtual Agent (step 3) to install it:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/01/quick-start-downloads.html

Then use using the correct the Product Key for the Premium or Ultimate Suite to complete the installation.

AutoCAD 2012 license cascading issue with Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate.

Please note that Autodesk Building Design Suite Standard / Premium / Ultimate 2012, 2013 and 2014 doesn’t license AutoCAD 2012 installed with 001D1 product key.

For more information please visit the link below.

Autodesk Suites: Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate 2012 doesn't license AutoCAD 2012

 

Security and installing Autodesk 360 [Component in AutoCAD]

For some of the more secure sites, you may not want to have Autodesk 360 installed.  The easiest way to not install it is to customize the installation.

Expand the accordian and change the value from Typical to Custom and uncheck Autodesk 360 for AutoCAD.

Thanks to Vicki Coleman for sharing this tip with the community.

Epilogue

The AutoCAD SQA team has informed me that this only prevents the 360 component from being installed from within AutoCAD.  You may need to manually remove it from Programs & Features.

The only way to completely not install it is to edit the setup.ini file as noted in the forum post below:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-2013-2014-DWG-Format/How-To-Install-AutoCAD-2014-WITHOUT-Autodesk-360/td-p/3871851

Please check out the comments in the post via http://www.jtbworld.com for more info as well!

Install Now doesn't not mean install later...

We have been getting a lot cases of Communication Failure Errors with our products.

If you are using the Install Now option, typically, means that you are Installing it right after you download the file [NOW].

Downloaded File:  AutoCAD_2014_English_Win_32_64bit_wi_en-us_Setup.exe

If you try to use Install Now file afterwards [LATER], i.e. log out of Subscription center and run the already Downloaded File, it will not work!

Install Now doesn't not mean install later.  Our suggestion is to use the Browser Download of the Autodesk product.

Also, the Install Now option will not have have the option to create a deployment. Again, our suggestion is to use the Browser Download of the Autodesk product.

Reference

Quick Start: Everything you wanted to know about downloading our software
http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/01/quick-start-downloads.html

Microsoft Windows, Autodesk and the price of progress...

We have been getting a lot of calls with users running Windows XP & Windows Vista recently. Basically, our installers will not allow you to install on older unsupported operating systems.

For information on Autodesk and Windows Vista, please check out this solution:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=18424371

Personally, I love Windows XP because it was pretty rock solid and it got some extra lives because of the release of Windows Vista.  Here are some interesting blast from the past moments in they year that Windows XP was released [2001]:

• The number 1 song was Lifehouse's Hanging by a Moment
• Gladiator won an Oscar for Best Picture
• The first Lord of the Rings  movie trilogy was released
• Apple presents the revolutionary iPod.
• The Popular Gaming Console: Nintendo N64
• The 2001 Honda Accord 

Hey we know Windows XP is old, but one of the biggest advantages, if you upgrade to a newer operating system is that you can now work on larger files (64 bit), multi-task (use more CPUs) more and have a better user experience.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/09/general-systems-what-is-the-difference-between-32-and-64-bit-computing.html

Indeed, it is the price of progress....

Certified Hardware
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112

2014 System Requirements for Suites
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=16490792

All the PDFs in the System Requirements page will have a detailed information on what operating systems are supported.  You will notice that some of the Standard Suites will support either XP or 32 bit. If you need to use Premium or Ultimate Suites, you will need a 64 bit Windows 7/8 operating system.

Downloading Software: Suites + Internet Explorer + Pop-up's

I typically prefer using a Browser Download of our software but one of the more interesting granular details on using Internet Explorer to download the software is that you must enable Pop-Ups.

1.  Most of our Suites are more than 1 part.  If you see the name name_of_product_001_005.exe, you need 5 parts.

2.  Use a Browser Download if you are installing it on multiple machines so that you can deploy it easily. Also, you will save bandwidth on your network because you are only downloading the software once.

3.  If you can't get more than 1 part, please reset Internet Explorer and enable Pop-Ups in the download section in the Subscription site.  To reset your Internet Explorer, check out this KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923737

For additional details and a demo of how to setup your Internet Explorer correctly, please check out this demo:

Video:  IE-settings-browser-download-Suite

Reference

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/01/quick-start-downloads.html

Error: AutodeskInstallNow.exe Entry Point Not Found + zlib.dll + Procmon

Let me start by saying that Process Monitor [Procmon.exe] is my best friend because I have used it many times to solve various issues.

In this scenario, the problem was that as soon as you try to run Setup.exe from the install media of our software, the error was:

AutodeskInstallNow.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point inflateEnd could not be located in the dynamic link library zlib.dll

Using Process Monitor, we were able to find out on the problematic computer that the zlib.dll that it was using was in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\zlib.dll directory.

I did a quick search on a my computer [Setup.exe worked perfectly] and I noticed that I didn't have that file in that location.

I checked for the zlib.dll in the install media of AutoCAD 2014 and it existed.

I also did a search on the zlib.dll file and I found out that it is used for compression.  

A Dynamic Linked Library [dll] file can be placed in multiple locations and Windows will look for it in various paths set in the environment.

For this computer, the dll was in the SysWOW64 directory and it was probably from an previous install of some other 3rd party software.  When you run a Setup.exe of an Autodesk product,  Windows will look for dll files in various locations and it found it in SysWOW64 first.  In this case, the zlib.dll file that was there and the one that Autodesk was looking for was not the same version and therefore an error came up.

The solution is to rename the zlib.dll file.  For example:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\zlib.dll

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\zlib.bak

Once the file is renamed, Setup.exe will then look for the zlib.dll file in the media which is the correct version.

Thanks to Matt Urany for confirming this hypothesis was indeed true.

Reference:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/12/autocad-family-setupexe-bad-image-pdhdll-is-either-not-designed-to-run-on-windows-or-contains-an-err.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/03/the-joy-of-malware-autocad-2013.html