Introduction to Creo Post-Installers
Hi everybody, I am Daniela, and I am with SPK and Associates. Today, I’m jumping over from the SolidWorks side into Creo, and I’ll be discussing post installers for Creo—what they are, what they do, and what we commonly see used in post installers.
Now, post-installers are helpful when it comes to installation. One of the pain points that we most commonly see with our clients is, “Hey, how do we make sure all of our engineers, whether they’re overseas or at a different site, are all using the same settings, the same configuration files?” And similarly, when these config files are updated, how do we make sure that these engineers are receiving these updates? We don’t want anybody to be left behind.
Post installers are really great at making sure everybody is using all the settings that you’ve already approved, and whenever these settings are updated, they are getting the latest and greatest automatically, without having to lift a finger or manually update anything.
So, I’ll jump in here and talk about what we commonly see included in post-installers and a little bit about how to make sure those settings, whenever updated, get pushed to the users.
Troubleshooting and Bug Fixes
Now, I will cover bug fixes. We’ve seen some issues with Internet Explorer relating to PLM and Creo. There are a few registry settings that can help resolve this issue, and those can be bundled automatically in the post installer. So, when a user is going through the installation process, this bug is automatically fixed, which is nice—they don’t detect it, it’s automatically fixed. This is for all users, which is really, really nice.
But whenever you are updating the registry, you do need to have admin rights. So, right at the top, you can start off by checking for admin rights and displaying a message if this particular user does not have admin rights. You may not need admin rights to continue on here. You can create a directory for those config files and trail logs. This is incredibly helpful when troubleshooting—you know where these will be stored.
Using a post-installer, you can actually configure Creo to use the correct 1PLM instance. I’ll throw in an example: oneplm.doyoucompany.com/windchill. You can automatically configure that in the post installer, saving your user some clicks.
Just as we mentioned, you can resolve bug fixes that are known, that your users have come across, using the post installer. It’s a really nice way to make sure that you’re not responding to these requests over and over—they are automatically resolved at the time of installation, which is really nice.
We’ve also seen some issues where OneDrive is used, and instead of using the user’s desktop folder, it’ll use their OneDrive folder that is connected to the desktop. You can specify to have Creo use C:/Users/User/Desktop rather than the OneDrive folder it may automatically try to use.
Using a Launcher with Creo Post Installer
Now, this last point is really helpful. It will create a shortcut, if you want it to, to bring up a launcher. This launcher will check for any new config files. At the beginning of the video, I did mention, “Hey, it’s great we got the users to all install the same thing, but what if we need to make an update a few months from now? How do we make sure that it gets pushed out to everybody?”
By using a launcher, the user will launch Creo through a specific icon every single time, and when doing so, that launcher will check for any new updates to those config and setting files. If there is an update, one will be sent over to them automatically—they don’t see that happening, it works magically on the user’s end.
Similarly, you can use the post installer simply to relay a message that says, “Hey, installation is complete,” particularly if you have users who are waiting for that to make sure it completed.
Get started with Creo Post-Installers
Post installers can do so many things, so I did want to cover the main things we see and find helpful and what the purpose is. Again, this is really helpful when you have a wide breadth of users across different sites, across different continents sometimes, and you want to make sure that everybody is using the exact same config files at all times.
For more information regarding Creo post installers, SolidWorks, and so much more, please stay tuned!
