Registering Autodesk® Inventor™ on Windows® XP or Windows Vista & Windows7™

You want to know what user rights you need to install and run Autodesk® Inventor™.

For releases newer than 2012

Starting with the 2012 release, there is a new behavior documented in TS18138720.

For releases older than 2012

Inventor requires access to various Windows registry hives, including:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
• HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER  

Because Windows users with limited access rights cannot write to or modify the first two registry hives, certain operations will fail if performed by a user with limited rights.
 
The following operations cannot be performed by a user with limited access rights:

• Installing Inventor
• Switching between different versions of Inventor. Switching between versions requires Administrator rights in order to end Windows Explorer. Also note that a full registry cycle of Inventor is comprised of starting and exiting Inventor is necessary to correctly register all subcomponents, such as the Windows Explorer shortcut menus.
• Configuring the Inventor startup add-in load behavior in the Add-in Manager, as this requires access to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive. Once Inventor has been started, however, users with limited access rights can load and unload add-ins in the running session, but they cannot save these settings as the default behavior.
• Inserting BMP images into a sketch. (For a workaround, refer to solution TS1086806.)
• Modifying project macros that are stored in the C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor [Release Number]\bin\Macros folder, such as default.ivb.
• Modifying or adding files located under the C:\Program Files folder.

In addition, users with limited access rights see a missing (blank) icon displayed for DWG files.

Operating System and Inventor Release Specific Considerations

If you are using a version of Inventor prior to the 2009 release, you will encounter more access restrictions because earlier versions of Inventor install customizable files in the C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor [Release Number] folder by default.

Beginning with Inventor 2009 on the Windows Vista™ operating system, customizable files are no longer stored under the C:\Program Files folder.

Differences in File Layout and Access Rights between XP and Vista

Windows XP

File Layout - The following files are located under the C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor xxxx\ folder: 

• Samples and tutorial files
• Design data

Access Rights - The two main user types are computer administrator and limited user. All of the above files are read-only for a limited user.

Windows Vista & Windows 7 

File Layout- The following files are located under the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor xxxx\ folder:

• Samples and tutorial files
• Design data

Access Rights - The two main user types are administrator and standard user.
Both administrators and standard users have full access rights to the above files.

Notes on the User Account Control (UAC) feature (available only on Vista*):

• As stated in the Readme file for Inventor, be sure to turn off UAC before installing Inventor on your computer.
• If you need to switch between Inventor versions while UAC is enabled, right-click the Inventor desktop icon and select Run as Administrator from the shortcut menu to start and register the Inventor version.
• Because UAC also limits the rights of administrators, they will encounter the same restriction problems as standard users when UAC is enabled.

* In Windows 7 the UAC slider should be moved down to the lowest setting.

Conclusion

You need to have administrator rights to install and register Inventor. However, for day-to-day work with Inventor, you do not need administrator rights because the user settings of Inventor are written to registry keys located under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry hive. As a result, you can log on as a limited user (Windows® XP) or standard user (Windows Vista™).

If you are a user with limited user rights and you temporarily need administrator rights

• Right-click the Inventor desktop icon. Click Run as (on XP), or Run as Administrator (on Vista & Win7).

This will allow you to run Inventor without having to log off and log back in as an administrator.