Up and Ready

Maya Entertainment Suite: Licensing Turtle with a Enterprise T1 Multi-flex license

Turtle is used to create high-quality baking.  It is used to easily create global illumination for your next-generation game levels and then bake into texture maps, vertex maps, or point clouds and this plug-in is only available for Maya that is in the Entertainment Creation Suites.

For customers that are using the Enterprise T1 Multi-flex license, please note the following when installing it:

Maya Creation Suite 2013:   Product Key 535E1  > Turtle will be licensed and will work.
Maya Creation Suite 2013:   Product key  775F1  > Turtle will not work.

Maya Creation Suite 2012:   Product key 535D1  > Turtle will not work.
Maya Creation Suite 2012:   Product key 775D1  > Turtle will not work.

The product key is very important when installing the software because it controls the cascading of the licensing of the product.

NOTE:  You will need to contact your GBS Premier Expert to generate a new [addtional] license include a Maya Entertainment Suite 2012 license in order to run Turtle.

Reference:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/03/autodesk-suites-installing-turtle-with-maya-creation-suite.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/04/autodesk-suites-installing-turtle-with-maya-creation-suite-2013.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/02/product-keys-getting-your-product-key-from-the-compressed-downloaded-file-via-subcenter.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/06/general-licensing-product-keys.html

General Licensing: WTFFFFFFFF ?

I found a great post for the dreaded MAC etherenet address is FFFFFFFF.  It's from our fellow blogger: Stephen Blair.

Just before the Christmas break, I had a case where LMTOOLS reported FFFFFFFF as the Ethernet address, even though ipconfig /all showed a valid Physical address for the network adapater. Because of this, the license server wouldn’t start.

FFFFFFFF (eight F’s) is the broadcast address.

Check out the post here:

http://xsisupport.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/wtffffffff/

Referemce:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/02/general-licensing-hostid-is-ffffffff-and-a-97-121-error.html

Autodesk Moldflow 2013: Design Link licenses are not working

When you have a Subscription license for Moldflow 2013 Design Link, the INCREMENT part that is generated will not be correct.  The only way that you can tell if it is correct is if you use the license parser website.

Error message when using Moldflow to import a file:

Autodesk Simulation Moldflow Design Link import failed.  Autodesk Simulation Moldlflow Design Link license is not found, or the file type is not supported.

License Sample:

License file in license parser site:

Please log case in your Subscription account and manually request an INCREMENT (Non-Subscription) license and have them refer to this blog post.  Do not use RegisterOnce!

Thanks to David Owens and the Moldflow team for confirming this issue.

Epilogue

To ensure that you have access to the Design Link 2012 and 2013 at your site. your sample license will have an INCREMENT 2013 Design Link license and a PACKAGE Design Link 2012 for Catia/Parasolid/Pro/E license.

Epilogue II

As of May 30, 2012, this issue is resolved.  You may generate your licenses via RegisterOnce.

General Systems: Parallels on the Mac and Standalone licensing issues

When you are running a Mac with Parallels to run your Autodesk product [AutoCAD], we only support the default setup of Parallels and Windows.  The instructions for this default setup is noted here:

How to install Windows on Mac using Parallels Desktop?
http://kb.parallels.com/ca/4729

Setting Parallels Desktop to run Windows from the Boot Camp partition is not supported and the instructions for this setup is noted on Page 16 here:

Getting_Started_With_Parallels_Desktop.pdf

The reason for this is that the Autodesk product [AutoCAD], is registered to the Windows hard drive partition in Boot Camp.  When you install Parallels afterwards and try to run the Autodesk product , it is trying to read the registration information on the Mac hard drive partition and it will error out.

To resolve this issue, please follow the following instructions:

1.  Restart your Mac in Boot Camp so that you are running in the Windows partition.

2.  You will need to show hidden files on Windows.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Show-hidden-files

3.  Backup and then delete the following files:

Windows 7

C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data

C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data_backup.001

4.  Create a new user Administrator account called "Autodesk".

Select the Video:  My computer is in a Workgroup
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IN/windows7/Create-a-user-account

5.  Logout of the current account and login to "Autodesk".

6.  Launch AutoCAD and let it activate.  If it doesn't activate automatically, please check out this post:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/05/general-licensing-getting-an-activation-code-manually.html

7.  Please logout of the "Autodesk" account and log back into the orginal account and launch your Autodesk product [AutoCAD].

Quick Start: Tips and Tricks for the Autodesk Network License manager [lmtools.exe]

I have collected all the tips and tricks that I know of for the Autodesk Network License Manager  [lmtools.exe] as a Quick Start guide.  

1.  My personal favourite:  Edit > Clear Window...

Video:  Quick-Setup-lmtools

2.  Don't use the default name when creating service...

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/06/general-licensing-dont-use-the-default-name-when-configuring-lmtools.html

3.  Some additional check boxes in lmtools.exe and what they do...

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/06/general-licensing-additional-settings-in-lmtools.html

4.  Getting the status of license files that are really long...

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/05/general-licensing-getting-the-server-status-with-long-license-files.html

General Licensing: Getting the server status with long license files

If you have a license file that is really long, you will notice that there is a limit on how much can be displayed when doing a Perform Status Enquiry.   Please check out these 2 workarounds:

1.  Use the Individual Feature Option in lmtools.exe

A.  Use www.licenseparser.com to check the license and to search for the Feature Code to use in lmtools.exe.

B.  In lmtools.exe > Server Status Tab, before you click on the Perform Status Enquiry button, enter the Feature Code in the Individual Feature Option.

Video:  Lmtools-feature-only

2.  Go old school and do it via Command Prompt.  The basic syntax is:

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk Network License Manager\lmutil.exe" lmstat -a -c "C:\path\of\license\file\sample.lic" > C:\results.txt

In this video demo, I dragged the lmutil.exe and the license file [-t1.lic-] into the command prompt because I hate typing:

Video:   Lmtools-command-line

Inventor Family: An Autodesk product failed to send the required value for SERIALNUM.

I am only posting this to share with the community.  After researching our Discussions Groups, QA and various technical gurus within Autodesk, there are 2 solutions to this problem.

An Autodesk product failed to send the required value for SERIALNUM.

1.  Toggle off .NET 3.5.1, reboot your computer, toggle back on .NET 3.5.1 and reboot your computer again. Then try to run Autodesk Inventor.  In Windows 7, this option can be found in Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off.

2.   Backup, reformat and re-install your operating system.  Here is another deadly issue with a hail mary type of solution:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/09/error-unable-to-run-autocad.html

Epilogue

We recently got workaround solution for this problem!  You will need to create a new user account on the system and see if you can start your Inventor in that new account.  You may also reset your own account in Windows 7 as well.

1.  To reset a user account, you will need to copy your account profile on a network/backup drive then delete it.

C:\Users\YOUR-ACCOUNT-NAME

2.  Delete the User Profile in System Properties and log back in as yourself.

General Licensing: Getting an Activation Code Manually

In some instances, you will need to activate your product manually.  In order to get to this stage, you will need to:

1.  Try to activate the product automatically following the wizard.
2.  Close the wizard and try to Activate again and gather the following information:  Product, Serial Number, Product Key, Request Code.
3.  You should be able to run the product for 30 days while you are waiting for the Activation Code.

Here is the process to get the required information:   

Video:    Manual-Activation

If you have Subscription, log a case and submit all the information noted in the wizard.

Product:
Serial Number:
Product Key:
Request Code:

You can also submit your activation request here:  

http://www.autodesk.com/licensesupport

Reference:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/01/cool-one-step-licensing-assistance-is-live.html

Autodesk Revit [One Box]: Licensing and Installation FAQ

What is Autodesk Revit [One Box] in the Building Design Suite Premium / Ultimate and how do I install and deploy it if I still have access to the other Revit Suite licenses?

In this case, I am going to use the following scenario to help illustrate how the licensing works:

• AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite 2013 x 50 licenses
• Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate 2013 x 5 licenses

Autodesk Revit [aka Revit One Box] does not cascade down to the AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite license, or the standalone Revit vertical licenses.  It will cascade up to the Building Design Suite Premium, Building Design Suite Ultimate, Educational and Multi-flex offerings.

• Autodesk Revit MEP and AutoCAD MEP products installed through the Revit MEP Suite will cascade up to the Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate pool.

• If you have multiple license types in the pool, Autodesk Revit [aka Revit One Box]  will always pull a license from the Building Design Suite Premium/Ultimate pool.

We would recommend installing/deploying Revit MEP from the Revit MEP Suite media as the general practice. Only if somebody truly needs the multi-discipline capabilities of Autodesk Revit, should they install that version, since it will always pull a Building Design Suite license from that pool.

Autodesk Revit can only be purchased as part of the Building Design Suite Premium or Building Design Suite Ultimate.

The Trial version of Revit is indeed a [One Box] version and includes Revit Architecture, MEP and Structure.

Reference:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=6668606&siteID=123112

http://usa.autodesk.com/building-information-modeling/

http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/migrate-building-coder-samples-to-revit-2013.html

Epilogue

A quick note about the deployments, if your site has Revit Architecture Suite 2013, Revit MEP Suite 2013, Revit Structure Suite 2013 and Build Design Suite Premium / Ultimate 2013, you will need to create 4 types of deployment for each of the Revit types in order to cascade the licenses correctly.

Quick Start: Some tips when using & installing Commercial and EDU versions of our software

Here are some of my favourite posts [Quick Start] when dealing with Educational users of Autodesk software.

1.   In AutoCAD, *.dwg files that were created by an EDU version of the software will always have a Plot Stamp embedded in the file and there is no way to get rid of it. Please check out this post for further details:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/08/consequences-in-using-drawings-or-components-from-drawings-created-with-a-student-version-of-autodesk-products.html

2.  If you had installed an Educational version of the software and you at some point install the Commercial  version, you will need to perform some additional steps when installing it on the same computer:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/10/autocad-family-edu-and-commercial.html

3.  Here is another post from the Without a Net blog site to quickly test if a *.dwg  file has an Educational Plot Stamp in it: 

http://withoutanet.typepad.com/without_a_net/2012/02/using-dwg-convert-to-identify-drawings-that-contain-content-from-an-educational-version.html