Autodesk Design Suite Tip - Getting Access to All Licenses for Prior Product

AutoCAD Services & Support: Not all licenses for prior product versions are available after activating an Autodesk Design Suite

Issue
You have purchased and activated one of the Autodesk Design Suites or a product that is also available in an Autodesk Design Suite, e.g., AutoCAD 2011, AutoCAD Architecture 2011, etc. Later, you purchase and activate a different Autodesk Design Suite and notice that you do not have access to all the licenses you expect for the prior versions of the products that are common between those suites.

Solution
To resolve this issue contact Ideate or visit https://registeronce.autodesk.com and regenerate the original product license and the new Suite license so they have the same issue date. The issue date can be determined by inspecting your license file and looking for the ISSUED= section in each increment. For example:

PACKAGE 64300ACD_F adskflex 2.000 COMPONENTS="71200ACD_2010_0F \
57600ACD_2009_0F 54600ACD_2008_0F 51200ACD_2007_0F" \
OPTIONS=SUITE SUPERSEDE ISSUED=25-May-2010 SIGN="1242 937A \

For examples and complete details, click here.

Applies to:
AutoCAD 2010
AutoCAD 2009
AutoCAD 2008
AutoCAD Architecture 2010
AutoCAD Architecture 2009
AutoCAD Architecture 2008
Autodesk Design Suite Advanced 2011
Autodesk Design Suite Premium 2011
Autodesk Design Suite Standard 2011

Ideate Support Scores High

Ideate, Inc. customers rely on us to be their primary technical resource, whether they have a question about a network installation or a new software feature.

The Ideate Support Team includes civil engineers, architects, designers and others with experience in construction, facilities management, process piping, structural, and HVAC design. The team stays on top of today’s issues through their off-site consulting work, classroom training, and continuing education in their respective professional fields.

“Thanks to Teresa Martin for lending us a hand in solving a model issue, helping us avoid a crisis situation before a submittal deadline. We really appreciate Teresa’s quick response at such a short notice. I’m confident we’ll greatly benefit from Teresa teaching our upcoming batch of students at Ideate.”
—Rohit Arora, IT/CAD Manager, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

While the Ideate Tech Experts are able to answer most of your questions, occasionally we will contact Autodesk to find the right solution. I recently had a great meeting with Autodesk, to discuss our Quarterly Support Review (QSR.) The QSR program is designed to give feedback to Autodesk Partners, based on the quality and quantity of Support Requests submitted to Autodesk. Autodesk made a point to acknowledge our "exemplary performance" in all metrics. We scored Best In Class or better for Support Request Count, Avoidable Cases, Closed Loop, How To's, and Defects. Great job to all the Ideate Tech Experts! This is great feedback and really shows off the talent of our technical team.

Receiving the correct answer in a timely manner from someone who knows your business is what Ideate Support is all about. For more information, visit http://www.ideateinc.com/support.

- by Derek Wielkopolski, Technical Support Manager/Application Specialist

Recommended Reading - [BIM] New World

Ideate's own Teresa Martin offers some great Revit tips on her blog a [BIM] New World

Recent entries included:

Turning off those light sources!
An outstanding issue with datasets exported from Revit in the *NWC format is the light source object. Even when you turn it off in Revit before exporting, it stills shows up in Navisworks. This will cause problems if you are running Clash Detective with tight tolerances and keep keeping 'hits' or false positives because of the light source object. So how do you turn it off without having to scroll through the selection tree?

Locking your Global Options
This is one of those smart little tricks that is buried in the help menu in Navisworks. You can lock your global options on local machines to prevent accidental changes to settings such as units, viewpoint defaults and file reader settings.

Find Teresa's solutions and subscribe to her blog here.

To learn more about upcoming Revit classes taught by Teresa, visit www.ideateinc.com/educate.

Hotfix – Autodesk 3ds Max 2011

From Autodesk 3ds Max Services & Support:

The latest Hot Fix from Autodesk for Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2011 software includes fixes for issues with stability and performance. Specific areas addressed are, Autodesk Materials, Autodesk® FBX®, Help, Lights, mental ray®, and Slate Material Editor.

Click here to get the hotfix.