Copyright: Copyright © 1999 Autodesk, Inc. [v.u15MG.1.00]


AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester

Searches local and network drives for installations of AutoCAD (Release 12, Release 13, Release 14, 2000, 2000i and 2002). Displays search results and a summary of totals of AutoCAD releases. An optional Comment field may be assigned to selected search results and used to categorize AutoCAD release totals in the summary box.

Note: Some AutoCAD Serial Numbers may be assigned to Architectural Desktop. Although these may be reported as Release 14, the path name found may clarify which serial numbers are AutoCAD Release 14 and which are Architectural Desktop.

   The AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester Dialog

   Running the AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester from DOS


The AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester Dialog

File Menu

Opens and saves a list of search results. Closes the application.

New

Clears the current list to allow creation of a new list of AutoCAD installations.

Open

Clears the current list  and opens a previously saved list of AutoCAD installations

Save

Displays the Save As dialog box if the current file is untitled. Enter a file name to save the currently displayed list of AutoCAD installations to a comma delimited .CSV file. After a file name has been saved, subsequent Save commands save the current list to that file name without a dialog.

Save As

Displays the Save As dialog box. Enter a file name to save the currently displayed list of AutoCAD installations to a comma delimited .CSV file.

Exit

Exits and closes the dialog box. You can save any changes made to the current comma delimited (CSV) file by specifying a file name in the Save or Save As dialog box.

Edit Menu

Allows you to edit a comment to assign to currently selected items in the list. A comment is useful to categorize totals in the summary box.

Comment

Allows you to create, edit, or select a comment, such as a department or description, to assign to currently selected items in the list.

Look In

Specifies search options for local or network drives.

Network Drives

When selected, searches all mapped network drives.

Local Drives

When selected, searches all local drives.

Find

Finds all AutoCAD installations in drives specified by Look In and appends search results to the current list. Note: if you have a large number of drives to search, this could take a while.

Stop

Stops the search process.

Clear

Clears previous search results.

Help

Displays information about this dialog box.

AutoCAD Serial Numbers found

Displays a list of AutoCAD installations found. For each installation, the following information is displayed and may be used as a sort criterion: Path, Machine Name, Serial Number, Release, and Comment. The Comment field may be edited by first selecting items to edit and then using the Comment command in the Edit menu.

Summary

Summarizes the total number of AutoCAD installations found by release for each Comment. You may select a comment in the drop down list. Also reports the total number of AutoCAD installations found, including all comments and releases.


Running the AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester from DOS

If you have a large installation and wish to use a batch process to collect your AutoCAD serial numbers, you can use the DOS version of the AutoCAD Serial Number Harvester.

From the Migrate folder you may run the following command at the DOS prompt, with the options noted below. If you run harvester with no arguments, it will explain the arguments which it supports.  If neither local nor network are specified, the serial harvester will issue an error message, since there are no drives to search.

harvester

-local 	specifies that the serial harvester should search local drives

-network	specifies that the serial harvester should search mapped network drives

-csv filename	specifies the file name for the serial harvester to write the serial number data to.  If no file name is specified, then the default filename serialNumbers.csv will be created in the folder where you started the serial harvester. If you omit an extension for the filename, .csv will be appended. The filename may contain a path if you want to specify a different location for the file other than the current folder. The serial harvester will issue an error message if the –csv argument is specified with no file name.

-append	specifies that the serial harvester should append serial number data to the output file rather than overwriting any existing contents.

For example, if you wanted to check all local and mapped network drives, and save the resulting data in c:\Serial Data\headquarters.csv you would issue the following command from the DOS prompt in the Migrate folder:

harvester –local –network –csv “C:\Serial Data\headquarters.csv”

The resulting .csv  file can then be opened in the AutoCAD Serial Harvester dialog to view summary information.