How to Make Your Autodesk Deployments Portable

Here is a case I had WAY too much fun with. A CAD manager at one of my customers wanted to copy deployment packages to various local offices. The problem with that is the servers have different names so moving a deployment renders it useless unless you know which files to tweak.

 If one were to move a deployment image there are a few files that hang onto the path location.

1. The target in the properties main shortcut used to launch the installer. (the shortcut circled above)
2. Paths inside the ini file (in this example it will be in the img folder and called Infraworks_360_16.2.ini)
3. Paths to modify the deployment. This is optional, but handy to have ready to go.

In this example I'm showing an Infraworks 360 deployment. However, this technique will work with most Autodesk product deployments.

• So, instead of using the shortcut to launch the deployment, use a batch file. The batch file is short, but sweet and looks like this:

%~dp0Img\Setup.exe /W /q /I Img\Infraworks_360_16.2.ini /language en-us

%~dp0 means "use the current folder"
img is the next folder to look in. Note that there is no space between the %~dp0 and the Img
Setup.exe is the installation executable
/w means wait for any other installers to finish
/q means quiet (no dialog boxes except for a progress bar)
/I means install

• Once you have the batch file, you can delete the original shortcut if you wish.

• The last required step is to modify the ini file. Go to the IMG folder and edit the ini file with your deployment name (in my example Infraworks_360_16.2.ini ).
• Scroll down to the Global MSI Properties Area
• Remove the path to the Admin Image. You can delete this because it is only used when creating new deployments.
• Change the path to the Network log to %tmp%

• Save the ini file and that's it. 

If you want, you can also create a batch file to replace the Create & Modify a deployment shortcut too. The new deployment you create will be created in the same location as the one you are working with.

If you are a real stickler, you can use the same techniques to modify the path to the update tools in the ApplyUpdates folder. I find it much easier to manually run AdAppMgr.exe from ..\IMG\Setup\AdAppMgr\ but this is what it would look like if you want to make a batch file:

Because I kept all of the install tools in their default directories, I needed to use %~dp0..\..\ to tell the batch  file to look 2 directories up.

At this point you can move the deployment package to any server or USB drive without If you try this, I'd love to hear your feedback on how it worked for you. 

Special thanks to Richard H. for his ideas on doing this.