How to deploy specific settings for Autodesk DWG TrueView 2016

Recently a company asked how to deploy Autodesk DWG Trueview 2016 to 120 workstations so that they all have access to specific network printers.

Because DWG TrueView can't export profiles like AutoCAD does to share network settings for printers, etc, there is no means to save a profile as a .arg file to load on other workstations. 

But, there is a Windows registry entry for the default user profile for DWG TrueView located here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\DWG TrueView\R14\dwgviewr-F001:409\Profiles\<<Unnamed Profile>>

 See the context for this profile in the Registry Editor*:

So, it's possible to set the paths for network printer settings in this profile under the General key here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\DWG TrueView\R14\dwgviewr-F001:409\Profiles\<<Unnamed Profile>>\General

For example, this value can be edited as needed in the registry:

%USERPROFILE%\appdata\roaming\autodesk\dwg trueview 2016 - english\r14\enu\plotters\pmp files

For more details, please see the Autodesk discussion thread here: Save profile DWG Trueview 2014

 

For the deployment, you can use the command line switches for setup.exe as detailed in the Microsoft link to Command-Line Options.  You can save settings in setup.ini and run the installer using these switches:

setup.exe /w /t /l /q setup.ini

Where these switches are defined as:

/w - Nonfatal warnings (shown)

/t  - Full UI (default) (user interface)

/l  - logging (enabled)  

/q - quiet (no messages displayed to user)   

 

 

*Warning! Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft provides a wealth of critical information that you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support. Use the Microsoft® Registry Editor only at your own risk and only after backing up the registry as well as the system.dat and user.dat files as outlined for your operating system in the Microsoft Knowledge Base and in the related solution, TS66513. Additional information about the registry is also contained in the Help topics in the Microsoft Registry Editor.

 

 

Comments

[R. Robert Bell]

This post mentions where the settings are stored in the registry. That's good. The post doesn't describe how to deploy the modified registry settings as part of the deployment, unless that's what was intended by the setup.ini part. However, how to add the changes to the setup.ini was not described. Is there a specific format for the REG changes in the INI? A sample of the setup.ini with the changes mentioned in the first part of the post would be very helpful.

[Bob Felton]

Robert, the case that inspired this article was from an experienced IT admin who already knew and had a preferred method to push registry keys to his workstations, so we didn't discuss whether he was using SCCM or GPO.

But, in general, here are details from Microsoft for pushing reg keys to workstations using a batch file:

To create a registry key with a batch file
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742162(v=ws.10).aspx