Autodesk DWG TrueView on Terminal Server

I was once tasked with installing Autodesk’s DWG TrueView in a Terminal Server environment.  Needless to say, it didn’t go well.  Autodesk designs everything to run in a stand alone user mode with full admin privileges.  So, to make this work, I found a website that had instructions that worked.  The original site has since removed that posting, but I was fortunate enough to pull it from Google’s cache (thanks, Google!)  I did exactly as this said and all users in my Terminal Server environment were able to use DWG TrueView.  However, those same users also needed full admin privileges on the server.  I have yet to tinker with permissions to get this to work with regular users, as my boss told me to just give ’em admin and then lock them down with Software Restriction Policies and Group Policies, but for those who need a starting point, here it is.

1. Logon as an administrator to the Windows TS
2. Install DWG TrueView 2012 accepting all default setup options
3. After setup is complete, launch the DWG application and make sure it starts successfully without any errors. Then close the application
4. Make sure the following 2 folders were created:
   1. C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk
      (or on Server 2008 C:\users\%username%\AppData\Local\Autodesk)
      
   2. %APPDATA%\Autodesk
      (Server 2008- C:\users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk)
      
5. Create a new folder called, for example, “DWGSHARE” on the local terminal server drive and grant the following NTFS permissions:
   1. Administrators – Full Control
   2. Authenticated Users –  Full control
   3. System – Full Control
      

   (Also create a “Temp” folder below the “DWGSHARE” folder

6. Merge the 2 folders noted in section 4 above to one Autodesk folder ,and copy the New Autodesk folder to the DWGSHARE folder
7. Delete the 2 folders from the user profile and from the redirected application data, if applicable
8. Export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk key using Regedit to a .reg file
9. Edit the exported registry file with notepad , change and replace all values that point to
   C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Autodesk (or on Server 2008 C:\users\%username%\AppData\Local\Autodesk)
   AND %APPDATA%\Autodesk (see 4.B above) to the new “DWGSHARE” folder path

   (I did a replace on “Users\\administrator\\AppData\\Local” with “DWGSHARE” and “Users\\administrator\\AppData\\Roaming” with “DWGSHARE” )

10. Also replace all instances of “C:\\Users\\administrator\\Documents\\” with “C:\\Users\\%username%\\Documents” within the registry file.
11. Import the edited registry file ,start the application and make sure there are no errors, if so this means you are on the right path.
12. Edit again the exported registry file and now replace the path from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Autodesk
    (Note – this Registry key is actually the terminal server “install mode” key, each Registry key is automatically pushed to the Current User hive of each user logging on to the terminal server  )
13. Import the file to registry, and make sure the following key  is replaced correctly and identical to exported file:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Autodesk
14. Logon to the server with a test user and try to launch the DWG application

Just replicated this today and all my terminal server users can use DWG TrueView now.  Did some more testing, and users don’t need to be local admins to run, they just need to be local admins the FIRST time they run it.  So, make them an admin, have them log in and run DWG, then log them out and set them back to normal users.