When installing on many PC’s or even when having to install on a new machine that you have purchased it is always a good thing to have a deployment of the software that you are installing. This really helps in speeding up the installation process. Why you might ask. Lets take a look at a software package like Product Design Suite.
There are many software packages included and all have different configurations that you would want to customize. If you were installing on 20 different PC’s then that would be 20 different installations that you would have to customize. When creating a deployment you will create that configuration only once and then be able to do a silent install on the PC’s that you.
So I know that you all know how to create deployments (but for those of you that don’t) I will quickly show you.
To start the deployment process, click on Create Deployment (not Install)
On the next page type in the Deployment configuration name and then browse to where you want the deployment files to lie on your network. Please note that the folder that you select needs to be shared. You can choose that only the files needed be included in the deployment thus saving space.
The next page is selecting your country. The page following that is a little different to the old deployments. Because of the Desktop Subscription option you will be given 3 options.
Autodesk ID is the option to choose if you will be deploying Desktop Subscription software.
Serial Number if you will be installing a standalone version (old perpetual license)
Network if you are doing a legacy Network License or Multi-User license.
Once this is done then you will configure all your software (only once) and it will start copying the files for you.
Once everything is copied to the deployment folder there is one more surprise for you. It asks if you would like to download and append service packs or updates and you ca then choose which ones you want. Much easier than the previous versions where you had to create a .msp file.
