Friday, April 04, 2008

Installing AutoCAD MEP 2008 on a 64-bit OS

A co-worker of mine tried to install AutoCAD MEP 2008 on a 64-bit OS and it didn’t work immediately. He got a message that it was 32-bit and could not be installed on 64-bit system.

Out of the 2008 products, only AutoCAD 2008 is 64-bit compatible, and AutoCAD MEP 2008 is only 32-bit compatible. In 2009, all product lines are 64-bit compatible and this will not apply.

There is a discussion on this on the Autodesk Discussion groups where it posted instructions on how to get it installed by editing the .msi and setup.ini. Attached are the instructions on how to do this. The instructions say ACA.msi but this will change with the vertical you are trying to install. Apparently installing 2007 or earlier isn’t a problem.

  1. Download and install Orca from Microsoft.
    http://www.technipages.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/orca.Msi
  2. Copy the installation files to your hard drive or a network folder.
  3. Backup the files ACA.msi and Setup.ini
  4. Edit the ACA.msi with Orca and delete the action found in the table "InstallExecuteSequence" that is called "CheckFor64BitOS" Delete the same line under table "CustomAction"
  5. Save and close the ACA.msi
  6. Edit the Setup.ini with Notepad. Delete the line under "#==================== Platform Requirement" that is labeled "PLATFORM=NO_WOW_64_PROCESS"
  7. Double-click the Setup.exe and you should be able to install without any problems.
  8. If you leave the default paths for the installation of the content, this may or may not apply.
  9. Some support paths under the "Files" tab of the configuration dialog box have incorrect paths. The installer adds and extra "\AppData\AppData" to some support paths located in the user profile. For example the Main Customization File's path is listed as"C:\Users\%username%\AppData\AppData\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ACD-A 2008\enu\Support\ADT" when it should be "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ACD-A 2008\enu\Support\ADT"
  10. Fix the incorrect paths, hit apply, and you are good to go.
  11. Set the paths for all content to be on your network drive. Here’s how I set the folder structure and edited the paths during installation…

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1 comment:

  1. AnnaFebruary 09, 2011

    Really great post!
    I tried to follow the instructions and install on win 7 64bit, but failed with our type of AutoCAD - it is AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop 2008 (part of Autodesk Inventor Professional 2008).

    Did you try with such an Autocad? Can you help me of advise something? I would be grateful for your answer!

    ReplyDelete

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