Autodesk Inventor® Hardware Web Site

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Last Updated
8/17/2010
Frequently Asked Questions



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52. Autodesk Inventor® Network license: Before R9.

This discussion assume that the network documentation provided with the AIS or AIP CDs (accessible from the initial CD startup screen) have been read and that the FlexLM license server is correctly setup.

  1. How can I use a fallback license server when the main server is not available?
  2. How can I prevent the application from looking at the wrong license server?
  3. How can different versions of the application on the same workstation to look at different license servers?
  4. I have to re-enter the license server name each time Autodesk Inventor® fails to find it.

Single license server (preferred):
This process requires Administrative access on the workstation

  1. Clear the registry value for HKLM\Software\FlexLM License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE
  2. Set the environment variable ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE = @Server_name_for_license1;
  3. Now Autodesk Inventor® should start just fine.
  4. After running Autodesk Inventor®, you will notice that the environment variable string has been moved into the registry. This is the key that makes it work for all users on the workstation.

Use of a License file on the local workstation (also allows for multiple servers):

  1. The license file should contain only 1 server name. Autodesk Inventor® will ignore any additional server names.
  2. Only one server name can be called out in the ADSKFLEX_LIXENSE_FILE registry key. If one is used, it must be the first item in the list.
  3. Multiple license files can be called out in the ADSKFLEX_LIXENSE_FILE registry key, separated by a semicolon (";").
    1. The license file, LICPATH.LIC, is located in the Inventor bin directory and contains two lines:
      1. SERVER ServerName 12_digit_eithernet_address
      2. USE_SERVER
    2. Where "ServerName" and "12_digit_eithernet_address" are to be replaced with their actual values. These can be obtained from LMTools which is running on the network license server.
    3. The values in ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE are scanned from left to right. This may impact which licenses are used.
  4. The license file is shared by all network installs of Autodesk Inventor® or MDT, or autocad installed from AIS or AIP CD sets, on the workstation.

Mixing Inventor 8 or earlier and 9 or later network installs on the same workstation:

  1. Once the network deployment is built with the network server model for your site incorporated, the one build can deployed company wide.
  2. The best way to mix versions of Autodesk Inventor® is to use the network deployment image for Autodesk Inventor 9 or later and modify existing installations to work with it. (The fist two steps below are required.)
    1. Clear the registry value for HKLM\Software\FlexLM License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE
    2. Delete the environment variable ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE
    3. Install Autodesk Inventor® 9 or later from the deployment image.
    4. Run this version of Autodesk Inventor®. It should automatically connect to the server.
    5. As long as the previous versions of Autodesk Inventor® on the same workstation are using the same servers, they will run.
    6. You may want to move LICPATH.LIC from the Autodesk Inventor version specific bin directory to a place like c:, where a uninstall will not remove it. Then modify the contents of HKLM\Software\FlexLM License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE to point to the new location of the file.
  3. If Autodesk Inventor has already entered a server name in HKLM\Software\FlexLM License Manager\ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE the install of an


Note: It is highly recommended that you download and install the driver certified on this web site before reporting problems.