Moving an Administrative Image

[engAlright]

We have a number of Solidworks client installations that were installed from an administrative image. This administrative image has to be moved, so the path to it on the server has to change. Of course, the path to the admin image on the clients then has to change also, or else you can't install SP's.

I've been able to figure out that there is a registry key on the clients that tells windows installer where the Administrative image is, but this registry key is unique to each computer as it is associated with a unique installation ID.

Does anyone have any other ideas as to how I could re-direct these installations to the new Administrative image location without having to do an uninstall & re-install (ugh)?

Thanks!

 

[ctopher]

I have not found it either. I don't think you need to uninstall. I think each user can dbl-click the image file and it will overwrite the existing. Check with your VAR.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

 

[PDMAdmin]

You don't need to uninstall and reinstall. Worst case, if the installer can't find the admin image, it will ask for the location of the MSI file. You can then point it to the updated location. To avoid that, we use the "msiexec /i" command in the logon scripts to point to the new admin image location. If the client installs are already up to date, it takes hardly any time at all, and we have the script check to make sure it only happens once.

 

[engAlright]

I thought that manually browsing to the Admin image when you are prompted for it was the answer as well, however it seems that this time the SP does not recognize the admin image we have as a valid one. It just keeps prompting you to point it to a valid Administrative image.

The process I did this time (upgrading from SW2004 Sp4.1 to Sp5.0) was to re-create the admin image from CD, then update it to SP5, which went fine. I then copied this new image in to this new directory location (no longer possible to use the original location).

PDMAdmin - can you give some more detail as to how you use msiexec to point clients to the new admin image location?

 

[PDMAdmin]

There's no reason the SP upgrade should have failed just because you moved the admin image. The first thing that comes to mind is that all the necessary files weren't moved to the right spot, or perhaps some files were corrupted during the transfer. At any rate, you did the right thing by recreating the admin image; that's what I would have done in the same situation.

You can read more about using "msiexec" with SolidWorks installs here:

http://files.solidworks.com/Supportfiles/SW_Installation_Guide/2004/English/install_guide.htm

Bottom line, the syntax is something like this:

msiexec /i [path to admin image]

The "/i" option installs or updates (it's also good for pointing to a new admin image location); the "/x" option uninstalls a client (very handy for upgrading a major release). There are many options available; you can read more about them in the install guide.

 

[engAlright]

Thanks PDMAdmin - I thought that msiexec was just for fresh installations, didn't know you could do SP updates that way as well.