Being Civil

Support for Windows Vista

We have been planning to spread the world about this but things slipped out of radar and we didn't. Autodesk have decided to formally stop supporting Windows Vista in 2012. It will still linger for a litle bit more and if you would like to know more about it as well as to get familiar with reasons behind it please see a following link:

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

 

Missing Coordinate Systems in Units and Zone tab

I remember seeing Forum posts about missing coordinate systems issue but never took time to get deeper into it until I was asked by my Brazilian co-worker to look at this issue. The issue is that customer could not see any coordinate systems available in Units and Zone tab. Off course, the issue was not easily reproducible on other machines which made it very hard to resolve. To picturize what the issue is I recreated this issue to show you how it looks.

To see how to resolve this issue click on continue reading.

 

Installing Plotter via LPR Port

There is something I learned years ago that I thought won't be needed anymore given what I am doing day-to-day for the last 5 years. But as many times before, I was proven wrong.  Recently, my co-worker got a question where customer was unable to install a plotter and was unable to see it in the wizard. That got me an idea to revise what I have done before in my CAD management days working with Windows XP. Off course, lots of things have changed, such as that most of us live in Windows 7 era, which makes some things obsolete. Some things got moved around with the introduction of Windows Vista and Windows 7 but essentially the logic still reminded the same. See it after jump.

Map 3D 2012 Service Pack 1

SP1 for Map 3D 2012 and Infrastructure Administrator has been released.  Please go to http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=18021295&linkID=9240858 for the downloads for both.

After installing the Map 3D Service Pack, you'll also want the AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2012 SP1 Ribbon Hotfix.

Note the installation note for Win7 and Vista users:

New Machine? Unable to Launch an Earlier Version after Activating Civil 3D 2012

Although this may not be a common occurance, you may find yourself with a shiney new machine and you eagerly install your current version plus 3 priors. As tempting as it may be to activate the latest and greatest 2012 version first, please hold off. Activating the newest version before activating the earlier versions could leave you with just a split second of the Civil 3D splash screen when attempting to launch the product.

However if you could not resist the temptation to activate 2012 first and now your 2011, 2010, or 2009 gives you nothing but a splash screen, there is some hope prior to completely starting over with clean installs. In order to correct this please move the following files into a new directory in the same location. For standalone installs:

• C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data
• C:\ProgramData\FLEXnet\adskflex_00691b00_tsf.data_backup.001
• C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Adlm\cascadeinfo.cas

DON'T DELETE THEM. Then relaunch the products and input the correct activation codes. It is recommended to activate the products in ascending order starting with 2009>2010>2011>2012. Hope this helps alleviate some frustration if you by chance come across this issue!

*The fodder for this post was provided by resident Installation & Licensing guru Alison Gangler. Thanks Alison!!

Infrastructure Suites Cannot Obtain License

Guys from Up and Ready are on fire! They published and wanted to share with us another great post that our Infrastructure customers may appreciate especially if they encounter the issue where the license does not get obtained. I know for sure that it would take me a lot of time and headache to go beyond this issue, but luckily our friends are on top of the game. Please see their recent post Autodesk Suites: Infrastructure Design Suite Standard license.

 

AutoCAD Map 3D 2012 & Civil 2012: Licensing with ESRI ArcGIS

Just before we wanted to call it a week we received a message with great post shared by our frineds at "Up and Ready" blog. This post talks about licensing with ESRI ArcGIS on the same machine where Civil 3D and Map 3D license manager is running. More information could be found at AutoCAD Map 3D 2012 & Civil 2012: Licensing with ESRI ArcGIS.

Thank you and have a nice weekend everybody!

Hotfix - Prospector Lock-up

In a continued effort to improve, we are releasing this hotfix for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2012.

This Hotfix resolves an issue where the Prospector would lock-up when adding or editing multiple Point Groups, Point Group Styles or multiple other Civil object groups or styles in the Prospector. The hotfix can be download and the instructions for installations can be found here DL17751015.