Designated Add-Ons Folder

[Josh Verran]

I've only just discovered that you can change the location of the Add-ons folder.

By default it's located locally here: C:\Program Files\GRAPHISOFT\ARCHICAD 23\Add-Ons

I'm considering changing this in our template to a central location on our Windows Server, so that all users get the same add-ons.

Anyone know if this works, or if there are issues in doing it this way?

[Barry Kelly]

I have never tried changing it to a network folder.

I guess the only way to find out if it does work is to try it.

So long as the network path is the same for every machine, I think it should work.

But what happens if it is a laptop and is maybe not connected to the network.

I do notice that when setting the new folder I can see mapped drives with drive letters (they would have to be mapped the same on every machine), but I can not see direct network locations.

I can browse the network but not all network locations appear that way - at least not on my office network.

Also it may be slower.

You would also need separate add-on folders for each version of Archicad.

Barry.

[scottjm]

Ooohh I’d be interest to know how your testing on this would go Josh. We’ve always struggled to keep addons consistent across computer. 

My current process is just accessing each computers hidden C$ share and just adding, removing apx files that way. 

The other thing to consider is whether that addon path reg key is stored HKCU or HKLM. I suspect it’s local user, which means it will default back to the archicad default for any new users that login to a computer (this is on windows, no idea about Mac). 

In my ideal world where I have infinite time to write little programs, I’ve always thought about writing a little addon manager that could run in the background on each computer and you could monitor and deploy addons from a central location. Wishful thinking though. 😞