For anybody who’s ever purchased an Autodesk education suite, they will have seen the binders, packed full of CDs. These get handed over to our IT departments or network gurus, and we say “Hey…uhm, can you install all of this software for me?” Fortunately for the IT professionals, they have ways of doing this once locally and then they can ‘image’ their labs or install a ‘silent deployment’ of the software from the server to all the necessary client computers.
This year, the process got a little easier to execute and the media got a lot more economical in regards to the volume it takes up physically. We went from a binder to a nicely packaged 32 Gb common installer USB stick. There are a couple ways this makes the installation process much more simple.
A) For common network storage, you may want the installer package saved to a network location. Simply copy the contents of the USB stick to that secure network location with one command. The entire contents of the Suite will be available from that network folder now for anyone with access and they can execute the installation from there.
B) One time install for all associated applications. The USB Common installer does away with the old process of choosing the specific disc for the software you need at that time. Now you can insert the USB stick or select the executable file from the network location and you will get a Installation Screen where you can pick and choose the applications needed in your lab or on your computer. No more switching from disc to disc.
