Limited user accounts fail to register Inventor
correctly in two scenarios:
- During first
run of Inventor after a fresh install
- When switching
between Inventor versions on the same machine
Limited users will see this error message when trying to run
R2009 after having run a different version of Inventor previously. After the message Inventor 2009 simply fails to launch:
Note: click on the image to get a full-size view
This limitation especially affects high security military and government accounts and schools where often the Inventor user does not have local admin rights.
I started thinking about a possible workaround by revisiting the “Run as administrator” trick
as mentioned in technical solution TS1088146
Here
is what I came up with.
If we
would be able to run Inventor without exposing the administrator password to
the user with a limited account, the problem would be solved, wouldn’t it?
I took
as example R2008, but the example can easily be adapted to R2009 or R2010.
Step 1
The
system admin prepares following VB script with file name “run2008asadmin.vbs”:
Option explicit
Dim oShell
set oShell=
Wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
'Replace the path with the program you wish to
run c:\program files...
oShell.Run "runas /noprofile
/user:localadmin
""C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor
2008\Bin\Inventor.exe"""
WScript.Sleep 100
'Replace the string --> localadminpassword~
with the
'password used on your system and include the
tilde "~"
oShell.Sendkeys "localadminpassword~"
Wscript.Quit
This
script runs Inventor R2008 (assuming it is installed in the default location)
with the admin account
Username of local admin account = localadmin
Password = localadminpassword
You will have to modify the 3 strings in red to adapt the script to the situation
on your site or your client machines.
Note
that I deliberately used a admin account local to the machine (so system admin
does not need to use the site wide admin account)
Step 2:
The
system admin encrypts the vbs script so that the password does not get revealed
on the client machine.
This can be done with a free Microsoft tool called MS
Script Encoder.
I
cannot include the tool here as it gets personalized to a particular machine
during download. But it is a quick download and a quick install.
Install
the tool in the default location which is C:\Program Files\Windows Script
Encoder.
Open a
cmd window and navigate the folder where your run2008asadmin.vbs file is
located. Then run this command in the cmd window to generate the encrypted file
(run2008asadmin.vbe)
“C:\Program Files\Windows Script Encoder\screnc" /l
vbscript run2008asadmin.vbs run2008asadmin.vbe
Step 3:
The
system administrator includes ONLY the vbe file in the administrative image for
deployment.
The
VBE file can be placed as a shortcut link on the desktop of the client
machines.
A
similar process needs to be followed for each version on the client machine (if
R2009 is on the same machine, the admin will need to create a
run2009asadmin.vbe file etc)
Any
non-admin user can now double click the vbe file to launch and register an
Inventor version without encountering above error dialog.
There
are more secure ways to encrypt files but the method as explained above took me
exactly 1 hr to develop and put into action. I would hope that this minimal impact workaround helps anyone that has been confronted with above dialog.
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