Some tips for identifying and troubleshooting potential issues caused by installation and activation of MicroStation in high security environments.
Sometimes an installation and/or activation of MicroStation can be problematic and show unexpected behaviour even though the setup and activation processes completed apparently without any warnings or errors.
This often can happen in environments with strict security policies and where workstations' users are not granted administrator or power user rights.
MicroStation does not require to be executed with Administrative rights but it does require to be installed and activated with such privileges in order for it to correctly write all file and registry keys.
Windows 7 and Windows 8 new security design sees that processes and applications are by default initiated as "normal user" rather than as "administrator" even if the logged in user has "Administrator" privileges.
MicroStation will also require to be able to write, delete and modify files in several folders in order to function properly.
The symptoms of an installation occurred without sufficient privileges or of an environment that does not allow MicroStation to fully access (read/write/modify and delete) to the required folders can vary with the systems configurations.
Here below are some of the most common and recurring ones.
1. MicroStation will not save user preferences
2. MicroStation crashes when saving user preferences, creating new users or performing clipboard operations
3. MicroStation won't start: double clicking on its shortcut has no effect, the application won't start and no error or warning messages are displayed
4. MicroStation keeps starting in "Trial" mode even though the activation process was apparently completed successfully, without any warning or errors.
1. Manually start MicroStation "As Administrator"
One of the best and quickest ways of identifying issues caused by a lack of sufficient privileges in the operating environment or during installation is to run MicroStation "As Administrator" once and check if the issues persists.
The Article "How to Start MicroStation As Administrator" explains several options to do so, but the most commonly used would be:
1. Right click on MicroStation's shortcut
2. Select "Run As Administrator" from the context menu
2. Check MicroStation's Read/Write access rights
MicroStation also requires full access to some folders, specifically the "User Preferences" and the "Temp" folders. The folder access rights can be checked and modified by the IT Administrator but a quick test would be the following:
1. Open MicroStation
2. In the key-in (from menu Utilities > Key-in) panel type the following key-ins, followed by "Enter"
$ % explorer $(_USTN_HOMEPREFS)
$ % explorer $(MS_TMP)
3. Two Windows folders - respectively the MicroStation "Temp" and "User Preferences" folders - will open in Windows Explorer.
4. In each folder try to create a new file, modify it and then delete it
If you receive a permission error we know for sure that the current user has not sufficient rights to these folders and hence MicroStation won't be able to function correctly. The IT Administrator will need to grant user full access to these folders.
4. Manually activate MicroStation "As Administrator"
If you are having issues with MicroStation's activation, i.e. it always starts in Trial mode even if the activation process completed without errors and/or the License Management Tool's license list is greyed out, it may be worth trying to manually start the License Management Tool "As Administrator" and repeat the activation process.
For MicroStation V8i:
1. Locate the "licensetool.exe" file on your hard drive, it is in MicroStation's installation folder (by default "C:\Program Files x(86)\Bentley\MicroStation V8i (SELECTSeries)\MicroStation" for SELECTseries versions)
2. Right click on it and select "Run As Administrator"
3. The License Management Tool will start, showing "(Administrator)" in the top bar
4. Repeat Activation process or check out license as usual.
For MicroStation CONNECT:
1. Locate the "licensetool.exe" file on your hard drive, it is in MicroStation's installation folder (by default "C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation CONNECT Edition \MicroStation
The tips shown in this article are intended for helping users to identify if the issues they experienced are caused by a bad installation and/or a lack of the privileges required by MicroStation to run correctly.
Should any of the tips above make you realize that MicroStation was not installed with Administrator rights, the recommended action is to completely uninstall MicroStation and reinstall it with Administrator rights, as explained in this article.
Troubleshooting installation and activation issues.
How to Start MicroStation "As Administrator"
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