Is it necessary to run as administrator before using GUI-less mode?

[LuminescentLoom]

Help says that after installing or uninstalling side-by-side versions of Alibre Design, you have to run it as administrator because only one version can have its API registered.

Does that mean if you run registerCOMdlls.bat (as administrator) for the wrong version (that wasn't most recently run as administrator), it won't work? Or does registerCOMdlls.bat force that version to be registered so it's not necessary to run Alibre Design as administrator too?

Although the instructions seem pretty clear, I'm hoping I can skip the step of running Alibre Design as administrator and maybe that's only needed if you're not using registerCOMdlls.bat and GUI-less mode??

It seems to work fine with only one version installed and never running it as administrator.

 

[simonb65]

You just need to ensure the Alibre COM dll is registered, so you need to run registerCOMdlls.bat. That also needs to be re-run when you install another version of Alibre. For me, it should be done as part of the installer, who knows why Alibre doesn't do this! Running registerCOMdlls.bat, registers the version of the dll that is in that install directory, so other versions will no longer work until you re-register them.

When registered, you don't need to run Alibre 'as administrator' ... as long as you installed Alibre 'As Administrator' !

 

[stepalibre]

I have 3 versions of Alibre installed on my laptop. I run registerCOMdlls.bat before I run a program that requires that version for COM to point to the correct Alibre install.

Currently AlibreX is pointing to the latest version of Alibre:



Running registerCOMdlls.bat under Alibre Design V26 points to the correpsonding AlibreX for V26:



It is not only GUI-less mode that is affected, but any program that uses COM TypeLibs. You can run the bat files elevated before your program runs and check which version is in use.

The CodeBase key value will point to the registered version on your machine. You can check this value in your program many ways.





It all works reliably just make sure to run both As Administrator with Alibre closed:
registerCOMdlls.BAT
unregisterCOMdlls.BAT

 

[stepalibre]

For me, it should be done as part of the installer, who knows why Alibre doesn't do this!

Agreed! I guess this is easier for Alibre, but is more IT work for us to maintain. But I'm happy with Alibre's side-by-side system, compared to Autodesk app and DLL hell.