Networked DataSet Configuration for Bentley’s Building Solutions

Tom Lazear           
Chairman, Archway Systems, Inc.

If you work at a small firm with only a few seats of software to deploy, chances are you may have only installed everything locally since this scenario is somewhat manageable. However, the CAD or BIM Manager may want to deploy the dataset over the network versus trying to manage files locally. By utilizing a networked dataset, you will be able to improve efficiency within your organization. In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up mapped drives and folders for a network installation of Bentley’s Building Solutions.

Setting Up a Network Installation

1. Create a folder on the root of the network drive called “_networkspace”.

2. Right click on the folder and share this folder out.

3. Right click on the My Computer shortcut on your desktop, and select Properties.

4. Highlight the full computer name, right click to Copy.

5. In Explorer, go to the Tools pull down and select Map Network Drive. Select a Drive letter, for example, the Y drive. In the Folder field, enter: \\yourcomputername\_networkspace\

6. Select Finish.

Creating a Networked WorkSpace

In this section, you will learn how to simply and quickly create a networked Workspace for Bentley Architecture and point to it via the msdir.cfg.

1. Copy the entire delivered WorkSpace from the default location (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Bentley\WorkSpace\), to your shared Y:/ Drive, _networkspace.

2. Locate and open in notepad: C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation\config\msdir.cfg.

3. Copy and rename the msdir.cfg to local_msdir.cfg.

4. Edit the msdir.cfg as shown below:

5. Save and close the file. Now re-launch Bentley Architecture.

6. Go to the pulldown TriForma > DataSet > Parts, and you will see that it is reading the Parts from the Network Y: Drive.

Tip: This is a fast way to test network performance of the delivered datasets.

Configuring a Network WorkSpace for a Laptop (or Desktop) 

You will now learn how to configure a Network WorkSpace that allows a Laptop (or Desktop) to run on a Local WorkSpace when the Network WorkSpace is not detected.

Part One: We will create an empty .cfg file to be placed on the server in the Network Workspace. If this file is not found, the Local Workspace will be used.

1. Create an empty file called standards.cfg, and locate it in the folder Y:/workspace/.

2. Locate and open in notepad: C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation\config\msdir.cfg. Save the file as Network_msdir.cfg.

3. Modify the C:\Program Files\Bentley\MicroStation\config \msdir.cfg, as shown below:

4. Save and close the file. Now re-launch Bentley Architecture.

5. Go to the pulldown TriForma > DataSet > Parts, and you will see it is reading the Parts from the Network Y: Drive. It did this because it found the standards.cfg file.

Part Two: We will now simulate what would happen if the Network Workspace is not detected and the standards.cfg is not found.

1. Rename the standards.cfg to the Xstandards.cfg, located in the folder Y:/workspace/.

2. Now re-launch Bentley Architecture.

3. Go to the pulldown TriForma > DataSet > Parts, and you will see it is reading the Parts from the Local C:  Drive. It did this because it did not find the standards.cfg file on the Network Workspace.

Reconfiguration for Networked-Dataset

The following options are only available when choosing a network installation of a Bentley Building Product. The primary dataset readme: readme_bldgdataset.chm contains information regarding:

• Reconfiguring a Bentley Building Product for a Dataset in a non-default location
• Reconfiguration for Networked-dataset: Tool Details

There are several ways to change the workspace configuration to use a dataset not located in the default installed location. The simplest method is to modify the product's *local.cfg file so that it points to that dataset.

The product-specific *local.cfg files are: atflocal.cfg, stflocal.cfg, hvaclocal.cfg. These files are located in the following folder: [installation path]triforma\config\

To assist you in implementing this method, this dataset includes:

• pre-modified *local.cfg file
• batch/script file making it easy for a user to modify the *local.cfg of several Bentley Building products

Let’s now look at Reconfiguration for Networked-dataset: Tool Details. The workspace folder entitled "BuildingNetworkConfigTools" contains the following two tools:

1. A pre-modified *local.cfg appropriate to the product using the dataset you just installed, and which points to this installed dataset.

You can take this *local.cfg and overwrite the *local.cfg in installations of the product that you can directly access.

2. The two files "modifybuildingappcfg.bat" and "modifybuildingappcfg.vbs" can be placed anywhere on a machine on which a user wishes to modify the *local.cfg to point to this dataset (just installed).

This tool may be useful in case you wish the user to reconfigure product installations which are not easily accessed except by the user.

EXECUTION: Simply double-click on "modifybuildingappcfg.bat" to start the execution of the script.

NOTE: Each line in the delivered file "modifybuildingappcfg.bat" determines the most-recently installed version of that specific Bentley Building application. If it finds an installation with the same version as this dataset (for example 08.05.02), then it changes the *local.cfg for that product. When the script runs, you will have the opportunity to reject the change to the *local.cfg file for each product the script is run for.

EXAMPLE: Modifying the batch file

Of course you may also remove a product from the worklist in "modifybuildingappcfg.bat". For example, modifying "modifybuildingappcfg.bat" as shown below would limit the batch files to changing "atflocal.cfg" for the latest install of Bentley Architecture 8.5.2:

wscript modifybuildingappcfg.vbs arch 08.05.02 w:\networkinstall\
REM wscript modifybuildingappcfg.vbs str 08.05.02 w:\networkinstall\
REM wscript modifybuildingappcfg.vbs hvac 08.05.02 w:\networkinstall\

About the Author

Tom Lazear, the Chairman of Archway Systems, has been around the CAD and engineering industry for decades. Tom’s education includes a Mechanical Engineering degree, a Masters in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Business. Tom has held executive management positions at Flour-Daniel, Prime Computer and Computervision.   He and his son, Mike Lazear, started Archway back in 1989. Archway Systems sells a variety of software (Bentley, VersaCAD, Rhino, and Solid Edge) and offers consulting, software training, and sale of 3D printers. 

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