Autodesk has several different methods for downloading their software.
There are three download methods:
- Download Now
- Browser Download
- Install Now
To me, the best method is the "Download Now" method that has you install the download manager. This method you can pause the download, then start it again and it has error checking. Because of the error checking I do not worry if I have a bad download, I don't. To find out more about the "Download Now" method see the following http://blogs.rand.com/support/2014/12/download-now.html
The "Install Now" method I avoid. If you have to uninstall and reinstall the Autodesk software you have to connect back up to the subscription center and do it again, you don't have any files stored locally that you can use again, you can try but you'll receive a "Communication Failure" error. To me this is 1 huge drawback. Also, you aren't always able to login to subscription center and download it again or the particular version you need may no longer be available under your login.
If I'm unable to use the Download Now option (which is portable), I opt for the "Browser Download" which is a two-step process to get to the installation media. But it's re-usable (portable). You can copy it to a network drive and install onto other machines too!
In this blog I'll cover the Browser Download method.
You can use the "Browser Download" method from the subscription center (http://manage.autodesk.com) if you have a login or from an external website (virtual agent) as well. I opt for the Virtual Agent because it allows me to see if the download has multiple parts or not. The last time I looked at the manage.autodesk.com it didn't tell you how many parts you have to download.
Note: You must turn off your Popup blocker!
To get to the install media using the Browser Download it is a two step process:
A) Downloading all the components.
B) Extracting the files from the components.
A) Downloading the Components:
We will go download the Factory Design Suite Ultimate 2016 for this process.
1) The first thing you may want to do is create a folder to put the downloads into, I already had an C:\Autodesk folder so I created a subfolder called Downloads. Put it where ever you'd like but I recommend you keep the path very short. The desktop is not a good place.
2) Click the link to go to the Virtual Agent website.
http://autodesk.creativevirtual15.com/autodesk/bot.html?isJSEnabled=1&businessArea=Root.Front%20Desk&startContext=Root.Front%20Desk
3) Click "Download Links"
4) This page will change how it sorts, z-a or a-z often, so you may have to scroll down to "Autodesk Suites" and then again, you may not have to.
5) Select "Autodesk Suites"
6) Select "Autodesk Factory Design Suite".
7) Select "Autodesk Factory Design Suite Ultimate".
8) Notice you have a lot of links here. Depending on which program you are downloading you may also see 32-bit links (Note: 32-bit is not available for some programs/versions). If you are only downloading AutoCAD LT, then it's just 1 file to download.
We are downloading the 64-bit version, so we have 7 links (Part 1, Part 2,... Part 7) to click and download.
9) Sometimes your browser will popup a window so you can select the folder, others do not. Sometimes you can right-click the link and select "Save link as.." and then it pops up the saveas dialog. Browse to and select the downloads folder you created earlier.
Notice the filename. You can keep track of which ones have been downloaded from 001_007.sfx.exe part as they are numbered. The next one is 002_007.sfx.exe, and so on until 007_007.sfx.exe.
10) Notice it tells you in Chrome in the bottom left corner how much time you have left for this download.
11) It will stack them up too. You may need to stretch the window wider to see them all.
And so on until you have them all downloaded.
B) Extraction!
1) Browsed to the C:\Autodesk\Downloads folder (or where every you happened to download to). Double click the file named FDSU_2016_Enu_Win_64bit_dlm_001_007.sfx.exe in the name to extract the files. Basically look for the 001_007 file, the first one is the master file.
2) It will bring up the Autodesk Self Extraction Utility, just click Ok to accept the default c:\Autodesk folder:
This utility will extract the files from all 7 self extracting .exe files and create the actual installation media that we need.
Once it finishes “extracting” it will bring up the installation dialog, just click Exit.
3) Once it finishes extracting all the files it automatically runs setup.exe. Click Exit.
4) Now browse over to the c:\Autodesk folder and you’ll see the folder name that was created for the Factory Design Suite Ultimate 2016 install media. This folder has the setup.exe in it.
Note: I highly recommend you shorten the folder name if it’s longer than this and then make a copy of it on a network drive then install from the network drive.
5) I went ahead and renamed mine to “FDSU_2016_dlm”, I know it’s for Windows (there isn’t a MAC or Unix version), I know it’s 64-bit, because I wouldn’t download a 32-bit since I don’t have a 32-bit system. I leave the dlm so I know it’s portable.
6) When you copy it to a network drive ensure you 1) have enough permissions to write files there and 2) it’s a short path or you will receive 1603 errors during installs. After you copy it to the network drive, now run (or double click) setup.exe
7) And it will bring up the installation wizard so you can create your deployment or install onto this machine.
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