VisualCAM FAQs > Licensing > How do I distribute distribute Product installs across a network?

Question: I am trying to distribute MecSoft CAM (VisualCAD/CAM, RhinoCAM, VisualCAM for SOLIDWORKS) to our classroom computers and cannot find any documentation on how to silently install it.

Answer: We do not offer any special installation programs for deploying in multiple computers. We provide the standard exe installer. We have hundreds of educational institutions using our installation and they deploy RhinoCAM in various ways. We leave it to the IT staff at each individual institution to determine the best way for them to do the installation.

You can extract the msi installer from our .exe installer and setup your silent install. There are numerous 3rd party tools available that will allow you to do this. Some institutions use the following procedure to extract the msi installer.

1.Run the .exe file you want to convert to MSI. Don't proceed with any actions or close the window as soon as you see the first installation prompt.

2.Go to the Windows temp folder.

3.Locate the MSI package for your .exe file.

4.Copy the MSI package to a location of your choice.

One other item that might be useful to you is the issue of migrating license information to each of the client machines. As an IT administrator you can load client computers' HKLM registry with licensing preferences/information so that clients do not have to input any licensing data.

The License Preferences Settings can be added to HKLM in the registry

1.Enter the Settings in the License Preferences dialog and register the product from any one of your computers with MecSoft CAM software installed.

2.Close MecSoft CAM Software, open Windows Registry Editor and export the .reg file by navigating to:

RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 7.0: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MecSoft Corporation\RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 7.0\VMLicenseSettings

RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 6.0: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MecSoft Corporation\RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 6.0\VMLicenseSettings

3.After you have exported the file, edit the file using a text editor and replace "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software" with "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE"

For example:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MecSoft Corporation\RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 7.0\VMLicenseSettings

with
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MecSoft Corporation\RhinoCAM 2021 for Rhino 6.0\VMLicenseSettings

4.Save & close the .reg file.

5.Copy the above.reg file to all computers that have MecSoft CAM software installed, Right click and select Merge.

6.Hope this answers your questions sufficiently so that you can take it from here. Let us know if you need any clarifications or additional information.