AutoCAD

This is going to be quite a lengthy guide but one that we think you might find very useful.

Introduction

We have previously shown you how to report Autodesk serial numbers using SCCM and this has led to a number of questions being sent to us on how to deploy AutoCAD using SCCM and in turn, using the software catalog.

So, this guide will show you how to setup your CAD deployments as an application allowing you to either push out or allow as a request through the software catalog.

Prerequisites

Before we start there are a few things that you should be aware of before using this guide:

• For the purposes of this guide, we are going to use AutoCAD LT 2016 – English
• This is not suitable for an upgrade – only a clean install
• Should you wish to deploy to a machine with a previous version of CAD on it, you should ensure that it is fully uninstalled before allowing this application to be installed
• When the deployment is created, it is for the site that you have deployed it to only – deploying it to multiple SCCM distribution points does not work – if you do this, it will still install to where you created the original AutoCAD deployment to. So if you have multiple sites, you have to create an AutoCAD deployment to each of those sites and then create a new deployment for each of those sites
• You must have an excellent understanding of how AutoCAD and SCCM works

Instructions

Once you are happy with the above, then we can start the process of adding AutoCAD LT 2016 – English into our software catalog as an application in SCCM.

Extract the Installer

You should login to your Autodesk customer portal and download the FULL installer, it should be around 1.3GB in total size and a single file. The filename should be similar to this:

AutoCAD_LT_2016_SWL_English_Win_64bit_dlm.sfx.exe

Double click the file and it will ask you to extract to a location, for the purposes of this guide, we will extract it to the default C:\Autodesk folder:

Depending on the machine you are using, this can take some time to extract the full 2.6GB of data.

Once this has completed you should then go to the C:\Autodesk folder and run the standard setup file:

Create the Deployment

This will start to load the AutoCAD LT 2016 installer and will eventually give you the options to Create Deployment, Install Tools & Utilities or the standard Install. We want to create a deployment so click that button:

You will then be asked to complete the information required for the deployment. You will need to enter the following details:

• Deployment Configuration Name – a name for your deployment
• Administrative Image Path – this is important – this is where your clients will install the software from, so ensure it is to a UNC path with the correct share and security permissions setup on it
• The rest of the settings are custom to your own environment and not to overly important to this process

Once completed, it should look something like this:

Click Next and then accept the terms and conditions, then click Next again to take you to the licence page.

Here you should enter your serial number and product key and then click Next – or you can chose not to enter anything here and you can enter your licence keys on the end users machines after deployment:

Click Next once you are happy with your licence entry and you can then select the options that you want to have installed as part of the deployment process:

When you have made all your custom selection options, you can click the Create button. This will then run through what looks like a standard installation process and this can take some time:

When this process has completed, you will now have a source location ready to use for your SCCM deployment.

Creating the SCCM Application

You should now go to the Administrative Image Path location that you stated during the Create Deployment process and you should see a file structure like this:

You will see a folder called SMS_SCCM scripts, go into this folder and then open the text file called “YOUR DEPLOYMENT NAME_SCCM.txt”. In here you will find the installation script that you will need to use – so take note of this somewhere as you will need it later in this process. It should be similar to this:

.\Img\Setup.exe /W /q /I Img\AutoCAD LT 2016 English.ini

Now we need to actually create the application in SCCM, so open up your SCCM console and go into the Software Library ribbon and then drill down into Applications. Then right click on Applications and Create Application.

We are going to create this application using the MSI files available to us, so you should browse for an MSI file to this location:

DP01\Share\ACADLT\2016x64\AutoCAD_LT_2016_English\Img\x64\acadlt

This is your Administrative Image Path and then drill down into Imgx64acadlt (or x86 if you are deploying x86).

In this folder, you will find an MSI file called acadlt.msi – use this as your starting point to create the application and click Next.

You can then enter all the custom details that you want, however, there is a very important part you must change to make this whole process work, the Installation program. Remember we looked at the SCCM.txt file earlier in the process and there was an installation script? this is where you should now copy and paste that script and overwrite what is in there by default. So your page should look something like this:

You should now run through and complete this wizard to completion.

This will have now created the application with a lot of default settings, but there are still changes to make as the deployment is still looking in the wrong place for its source files, so edit the application and go into the Deployment Types tab and edit the deployment:

You should now go to the Content tab and you need to amend the Content location. Instead of it being in the Imgx64acadlt folder, you should remove this part and make it so that your Content location is the root of your deployment source.

So you should end up with a Content location similar to this:

DP01\Share\ACADLT\2016\x64\English

You can then change any other settings you wish here to customise your deployment.

Once you have completed this, you can now deploy the application and you should then see it available in your Software Catalog.

Come back and visit us soon as we will also be writting up a guide on how to add AutoCAD language packs to your Software Catalog.

Comments

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