Up and Ready

The mysterious ghost of AutoCAD 2015...

In this spooktacular post on Halloween, I recently solved the AutoCAD ghost of 2015....

1. We launched AutoCAD and nothing happened.

2. We then checked the Task Manager and nothing happened.

3. We changed the licensing type from Standalone to Network and still nothing happened.

Finally, we used Procmon to see what was happening and we saw this:

In this case, the system had Adobe Acrobat 9.0 installed which is really old software.  In fact, AutoCAD 2015 may have the following error when starting up if you have Adobe Acrobat 9.5 installed.

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2014/03/autocad-2015-application-error-0xc0000142-autoruns-for-windows-.html

To solve the problem, we uninstalled a component of Adobe Acrobat 9.0 to get AutoCAD to work correctly. Please check out the article below for details:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/AutoCAD-2015-will-not-start.html

Some other spooktacular posts are noted below:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2012/10/autodesk-license-borrowing-laptops-windows-7-power-saving.html

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2011/10/autodesk-suites-identifying-your-products-on-the-usb-media-using-the-product-key.html

Thanks to Rod Waller for confirming that this was indeed the issue.

Upcoming Webinar: Network Licensing Errors

AutoCAD Plant Design Suite 2015 Deployment Hotfix

If you had problems creating a deployment for Plant Design Suite, please check out the following article:

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/plant-design-suite/downloads/caas/downloads/content/autocad-plant-design-suite-2015-deployment-hotfix.html

The hotfix should also solve the issue below:

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2014/09/object-enabler-causes-deployment-of-plant-design-suite-2015-to-fail.html

Launching Microsoft Word 2010 will start the secondary installer of AutoCAD

First of all, most users have Microsoft Word 2010 and AutoCAD 2015 installed on their computer and we have not had any reports of the following issue when launching a non Autodesk product and getting this progress window to come up...

Please check out the following knowledge article to find out what caused the issue;

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Launching-Microsoft-Word-2010-will-start-the-secondary-installer-of-AutoCAD.html

In this instance, I tried to use Procmon  to figure out the cause of the problem and I just couldn't figure it out. I have to give credit to David Taylor for sharing this tip with the community.

Reference

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2013/05/autocad-norton-utilities-secondary-installer.html

Tip: Task Manager in Windows 8 [Details]

When you open the Task Manager in Windows 8, the default is not very helpful.  Just click on the Details tab.

https://screencast.autodesk.com/Main/Details/94eb0b51-b7f9-47ba-a0a4-b1e05688cbd4

Tip: My menu options have disappeared in the Task Manager in Windows 7

I found this out a long time ago but if you get the following in the Task Manager, just double click on the CPU Usage or CPU Usage History area to get your File, Options, View and Help menu back.

Please check out the video below to check out the workflow:

https://screencast.autodesk.com/Main/Details/f14dbbc8-8f66-471f-841e-69120ec870bf

Autodesk Desktop Subscription & McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator Settings

I wanted to thank Alejandro Bustamante for sending us info on how to configure McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator software to work with the Autodesk Desktop Subscription (Rental) program.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/article/How-to-set-up-McAfee-ePolicy-Orchestrator-to-allow-Autodesk-Products-to-work-with-Desktop-Subscription

There is a note in this article that mentions that you need to disable your anti-virus software.

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Meta-licensing.html

Reference

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2014/08/quick-start-security-anti-virus-software.html

Upcoming Webinar: Installation Log File Analysis

Why {y} is Y up in 3D software?

I used to support Maya back in the day and the orientation of the software is Y up.  For some of our other software packages, the orientation is Z up. During my morning coffee run, the conversation came up with with one of our Maya Developers [Julia P.] and she told me why and it totally makes sense....

If you are an Artist, the image will be on an easel, therefore, Y is up.

If you are an Engineer/Architect, you are working on a drafting table so Z is up.

Here are some screen captures of our software packages and their X,Y,Z orientation.

Please install Microsoft Windows Update (KB2987107)

Please install Microsoft Windows Update (KB2987107) ASAP.  The update also solves an activation issue as well.  For more info on it, please go here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms14-056

Reference

http://upandready.typepad.com/up_and_ready/2014/07/autocad-crashing-.html

http://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Standalone-Licensing-Wizard-Crashes.html