Administrative Image Installations in 2008

[msupemby]

I have a question concerning administrative images and installing them on client computers for SW2008.

For the past several releases of SW, I have used an administrative image to manage all of our computers. We have about 20 seats of SW. Usually this works really well & is not a problem but SW has changed the whole process with the installation manager and a "One-Step" Image process. I am fine will most of it except for the Option Editor and installing on the client computers. Based on the instructions that I have read, you type in the clients log-in information and the s/n tied to that person in the Option Editor and then the client can do the install via the HTML file. Problem with that at our company is that the clients do not have administrative rights on their computers to do installs. I (the CAD administrator) am the only person other than the IT dept that have rights and the IT mgr will not change that setting. In the past I would log-in & do the installs with no problem by using the "swsetup.exe" supplied by the admin image itself.

My question.....is there a way around this or am I missing something? When installing on client computers, is there a way to just type in the s/n for that client and install? Can you install via the "swsetup.exe" (I noticed it was still there after creating the admin image but the SW instructions said to not use it anymore if creating an admin image from the one-step).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Chris Pemberton
Sr. Project Engineer (CAD Administrator)
USNR - Woodland, WA

 

[mx2street]

Chris,

Does your company run on a Win2K3 domain with Active Directory? If they do you could always push the apps down via the active directory.

Tony Murschel, CSWA
Dual Xeon 5160 10GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
Solidworks 2008 SP1.1 x64
Solidworks 2007 SP4.0 x64

 

[SBaugh]

Tony is right that would be a much easier way for your company to move SW out to the machines.

But if you don't, you have to follow SW setup. The Admin images you have made in the past should have been the same way. One on the server and each machine installs from that central location. This keeps all users using the same Service pack. Otherwise its just a waste of your time make an admin image for each seat. Should just pass around the DVD to each user if that is what you did. Would have been faster.

The serial number for standalone seats has changed. Each user must have his own serial number and it can only be added during the install process. But of course it must first be added to the admin image like you mentioned above. Once the serial number is added to the machine its activated. Only one serial number per user.

Your IT manager is going to have to either give each user some power user rights so that the users can install each install them self along with SP's (as they are applied)... or he is going to have to go to each machine and do it himself. SW will not install without the ability to make changes to the machine and to the Registry. If they can't do this, then your IT manager is going to have to get off his butt do this himself or make you do it.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

"If it's not broke, Don't fix it!"

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