Vault Server Installs and Upgrades
Autodesk Vault upgrades and installations can be lots of fun when things go smoothly… but can be really not so much fun when things do not work correctly. I have done a few Vault 2016 to 2017 upgrades recently and it has taught me a few things:
- When Vault 2016 was released there was an issue with the Vault server install files that were shipped with the product design suite install files.
- There was something missing so you had to download and install vault server install files from the internet.
- To find this you would have to go to either to your Autodesk account and download it from there or you could find it using the Autodesk Virtual agent which is found here.
When doing the Vault 2017 server install I found I had the same problem (I had to download the files separately) but this was because it was an upgrade from 2016. A clean install of Vault 2017 server didn’t have any issues.
The separate Vault install files for 2017 are not available on your Autodesk account (the last time I checked) but they were available through the Autodesk Virtual Agent.
The other issue that I encountered was with permissions. The servers that I was installing on had many policies and virtually no rights, even with the user account for the IT administrator.
When trying to install Vault 2017 service pack 1, I encountered this permission issue. We first thought it was the policies kicking in because it was a Microsoft Installer package which I was trying to install. So we removed all group policies. Tried again and it gave the same error that installation was aborted because of a fatal error. We then removed the server off the network and it still didn’t work. Kept on giving the same error.
Finally i tried the Domain Administrator account….and it worked!!! From there, everything went smoothly and Vault is now working like a charm.