Installing OpenBuildings Designer

	Product(s):	OpenBuildings Designer
	Version(s):	CONNECT Edition
	Environment:	N/A
	Area:	Installation
	Subarea:	N/A

(The steps in this article also apply to OpenBuildings Station Designer, the sequence is almost identical.)

Downloading the Installer

There is one download for OpenBuildings Designer, regional datasets are installable options as shown in the steps below. Download from: https://softwaredownloads.bentley.com/

Click 'Get Software':

Save the installer file to an appropriate location (e.g. D:\_INSTALLATION\OBD). The installer is a fairly small initial file that downloads the rest of the content from our servers. This amounts to several GigaBytes of data so will be faster on high bandwidth internet connections.

For more than two or three installations it is worth creating a Deployment Image to save time and bandwidth during installations.

OpenBuildings Designer can be installed and safely coexist alongside any previously commercial released versions of AECOsim Building Designer V8i. It will not attempt to upgrade or uninstall an existing V8i commercial releases currently installed and by default installs its program and workspace files to different locations.

Notes:

In the case of a first installation of OpenBuildings Designer that is upgrading from AECOsim Building Designer. please follow the recommendations in Installation recommendations for OpenBuildings Designer before proceeding further.
As the regional datasets and other components are now on-demand downloads, in many cases it will be worth creating a local Deployment Image to install from. This is the recommended solution for sites that a) do not have internet access for security or other reason; b) have limited internet speed.

Installation

Installing OpenBuildings Designer is very similar to installing other CONNECT Edition applications, there are additional OpenBuildings Designer specific options.

Once downloaded, right click the installer and pick 'Run as administrator'.

When the installer reaches the first options dialog you have choices to select Product Companion Features and/or Companion Applications.

At this point it is important to select the Configure option and proceed through the available options, particularly the choice of regional datasets! Note that help is available during installation from the ? icon at the top right.:

When upgrading an existing installation any that are already installed will be upgraded as described in the red text below each item:

(Optional) To change the application installation location, click the Browse button next to the Application Path.
We recommend that you accept the default install location unless there is a particular reason not to:

If you need to make a change, in the Browse For Folder dialog that opens, browse to the drive and folder you want to install the product in, then click OK.

The following (optional) step sets the location of the Custom Configuration during installation. This eliminates the need to run additional procedures to deploy customised configuration files to each installation. We recommend that deployment Images are created using this step.

Select the 'Custom Configuration (plus Delivered Configuration)' option. Browse to the folder where your Custom Configuration will be located, then click next:

The Custom Configuration location does not need to have been populated with content for the installation to complete successfully. OpenBuildings Designer will still run without them but with only the delivered configuration and example dataset.

Click Next to continue

The Features step includes selection of the options common to other CONNECT Edition applications. The MicroStation MetroStation example is available at this point, it can be useful to install this as it is used by our online training material as well as being a useful sandbox for individual users to play around with. This example WorkSet can also be useful if troubleshooting is necessary.

Technology Preview Features are included by default but can be omitted at this point if required.

Note that 'File Association is shown unticked, this anticipates that Bentley View CONNECT Edition is installed as a default DGN viewer.

OpenBuildings Designer Regional WorkSets are selected in the next dialog. At least one dataset must be installed for the application to function (without configuration).

Note that the Neutral Metric dataset now includes a metric version of the US examples and training WorkSets. While it is selected by default, the US dataset does not have to be installed. Installing one or both of these datasets is useful for training and troubleshooting as already mentioned. Update 8 introduces the new ISO 19650 dataset. When upgrading any existing datasets will be shown ticked in this list.

Note that the US dataset will be ticked by default, if you do not need it, untick it:

New to Update 8 are options for handling existing datasets.

There are four choices:

Upgrade with Backup: upgrades the existing dataset backing up all content to ensure any custom content is not lost.
No Action: leaves the existing dataset as is. This will require any changes delivered by a new dataset to be applied manually.
Fresh Install with Backup: removes the existing dataset backing up all content to ensure any custom content is not lost, entirely replacing it with the new dataset.
Fresh Install: removes the existing dataset entirely replacing it with the new dataset.