install options for "refresh" release

Hi Jeff

What a pleasant surprice, A new BA with faster unify - that is really good news because it is a pain as it is now.

But what are the install options for this?

 

Can I make a new parallel install of ustn ss2 and install this on top of that?

Or can I install the "refresh" bang/smack over my present 11080 - and KEEP all customisation?

Or do I have to uninstall  etc..........?

 

Parents
  • Thomas,

    Since the building applications are a layered application on top of MicroStation, that version of MicroStation can only  host one version of the vertical application, therefore this cannot be installed in parallel on the same version of Microstation. Also, building application currently do no support multiple installs of MicroStation within the same major version. However, building application can happily coexist with other major versions such as XM (8.11.4.xx), V8i (8.11.5) and v8i SELECTseries 1 or SELECTseries2 (08.11.07).

    As always, we recommend you uninstall the previous version prior to installing the Refresh 3 release and make sure you have administrative privileges for the installation.

    Also, please remember if you are running other Building application, they must all coordinate with the same refresh release, therefore if you are running previous 08.11.07 versions of Structural Modeler or Bentley Building Designer, I would wait for the corresponding Refresh 3 release products, before you migrate.

    In this release, there is no significant changes to either the configuration or datasets, so this should not have any impact on customizations.

    Thanks, Jeff



  • In case you don't know> this is really a problem!

    Installing a new BA out of the box is no problem. But I have customisations, and I have a Swedish dataset, and customisation on that, and perhaps an add on or two, also with customisation. Then it is NOT trivial. Especially for me, but we both now even dedicated cad managers has to put a lot of attention and work for this.

    As it is not a simple task it takes time and focus - and until you are finished you can do NO WORK. And that hurts!

    Also, as with Carl, you run into problems then .........

    What you want to do is make a new SEPARATE install of ustn, then BA in times off, perhaps an evening, do some customisation,  test and rest.  Install the dataset and test some spare time next day. Ponder over some changes in set up or custimisations. And calmly build your installation. Test it and gain confidence. THEN start using it for real.

    Is this a Building thing? or platform?

    regards / Thomas Voghera

  • Thomas, I don't understand your problem.

    We never use the Bentley delivered datasets, and have ours on the network drive. Costumisations are completely independent from installations.

  • Perhaps you are good at configuration and customisation. I am not.

    The customisations per se are not changed.

    But there are preferences to set, interface to reconnect, ucf etc.

    It doesn't set itself.

    regards / Thomas Voghera

  • I agree that Microstation configuration is not simple per se. But it can be made quite simple.

    My proposal to do it requires those steps.

    1. Copy your workspace to a new location, either on the network or in a different folder on your local PC. Obviously I recommend the network for company installations.
    2. On each PC, define the _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT variable, and point it to the new location

      e.g.:

      _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT = M:/Microstation/Workspace/

      This can be done in 2 ways.
      1. Manually edit the mslocal.cfg file on each PC, and use forward slashes in the path.
        Beware of one thing - if you install a new Microstation version, you'll have to do that operation once again.
      2. Define it as a Windows system variable. In this case you will have to use backward slashes
    3. In addition I would recommend to generate a company wide configuration file. This one should be saved in the Workspace\Standards directory. I have attached our company configuration file.
    sitestandard.cfg
Reply
  • I agree that Microstation configuration is not simple per se. But it can be made quite simple.

    My proposal to do it requires those steps.

    1. Copy your workspace to a new location, either on the network or in a different folder on your local PC. Obviously I recommend the network for company installations.
    2. On each PC, define the _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT variable, and point it to the new location

      e.g.:

      _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT = M:/Microstation/Workspace/

      This can be done in 2 ways.
      1. Manually edit the mslocal.cfg file on each PC, and use forward slashes in the path.
        Beware of one thing - if you install a new Microstation version, you'll have to do that operation once again.
      2. Define it as a Windows system variable. In this case you will have to use backward slashes
    3. In addition I would recommend to generate a company wide configuration file. This one should be saved in the Workspace\Standards directory. I have attached our company configuration file.
    sitestandard.cfg
Children
  • My recommendation might be slightly different from Andreas's, but similar.  Rather than redirecting _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT to a network drive, I would suggest that you only redirect the items that you are customizing.  Typically this would be:

    TF_DATASETS

    _USTN_PROJECT

    _USTN_SITE

    _USTN_USER.  

    If you redirect _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT you would be redirecting all of the above variables plus:

    _USTN_SYSTEMROOT

    _USTN_USERINT

    HVACDIR_WORKSPACE (if using BBMS)

    MS_ROSEDB_STRUCTURAL (if using Structural Modeler)

    Together these add about 200MB of additional data to manage on the network.  The content called by these configuration variables are typically not edited by companies and therefore by adding them to a network configuration would have two negative consequences.  The first is that by having the software pull the resource files from the network rather than the installed workspace root you are going to experience a performance lag during application launch and file load.  Benchmark tests that I have run showed that not directing this variable to a network can be up to 4 times faster than the network load.  The second downside of directing these additional variables to a network is that each time a new build of the application is released, the CAD or BIM Manager would have to go out and compare those directories managed on the network to the new builds installed workspace equivalents and update the network to reflect any changes.  By not redirecting everything using _USTN_WORKSPACEROOT you will not have to manage software updates on these folders, instead the configurations would simply start reading the updated files from the local copy of the installed workspace.  

    Sorry for the lengthy post, but this is something that I have implemented in a couple workspaces, including the US Army Corps of Engineers, and it has been very effective in managing software updates while not limiting the ability to customize the workspace.  

    HTH,

    Travis