Before You Start

• When installing or uninstalling this product, you must be logged on with Administrator rights.
• It is highly recommended that you close any programs and disable any antivirus software that is running prior to the installation of this software. Be sure to turn on your antivirus software when you are finished.
• AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition is designed so it can be installed and safely coexist on the same workstation with an existing Bentley Building V8i or V8 XM Edition Commercial Release applications (such as Bentley Architecture, Bentley Structural Modeler , Bentley Building Mechanical Systems and Bentley Building Electrical Systems). It will not attempt to upgrade or uninstall an existing commercial release, and by default it installs its program and configuration files to different locations than the commercial release. When you install AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition it creates the registry entries responsible for file associations. If you do not want this to happen, during installation, in the Select Features to install list, turn off the File Association check box. AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition also creates the registry keys for VBA-initiated launching. Windows architecture allows for only one program to own these registry keys and the existing AECOsim Building Designer V8i or AECOsim Building Designer V8 XM Edition Commercial Release should continue to function normally by default.
• If you installed AECOsim Building Designer V8i and AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition on the same workstation and then uninstalled AECOsim Building Designer V8i, you must run the Repair tool to make sure the registry and file associations are correct.
  Note: If you used Microsoft's program to uninstall, the Repair tool will work correctly. However, if you used a third-party's product to uninstall, it may have removed files needed by AECOsim Building Designer. For the procedure to repair AECOsim Building Designer, refer to the topic To Repair AECOsim Building Designer.
• When you install AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition, the following applications are installed with it:
  • Product Documentation
  • Example WorkSpace
  • Visualization Content
  • CONNECTION Client
  • Structural Synchronizer
  • Bentley Structure Property Catalog
  • Bentley SPC Server
  • Bentley DGN IFilter
  • Bentley DGN Indexing Service
  • Bentley DGN Preview Handler
  • Bentley DGN Thumbnail Provider
  • HDR Preview Handler
  • Bentley i-model ODBC Driver
  • Bentley DgnDb i-model Importer 1.5 (64 bit)
• Examples WorkSpace contains downloadable examples.
• Visualization content in the form of ready-to-render cell libraries is installed. It also contains LumenRT ready cell libraries.
• The Bentley DGN Reader for Windows 7 is an application that can be downloaded from Bentley iWare section on http://www.bentley.com/en-us/free+software/. When you install this application on your system, the following applications are installed along with it:
  • Bentley DGN IFilter
  • Bentley DGN Preview Handler
  • Bentley DGN Thumbnail Provider
• Bentley DGN Thumbnail Provider is required to correctly view DGN thumbnails on the Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 operating systems. Immediately after installing Bentley DGN Thumbnail Provider, you still may not see the correct thumbnails for DGN files. This will be corrected by rebooting or re-logging onto the system.
• The Bentley i-model ODBC Driver is used to expose properties in i-models as an ODBC data source. It offers direct access of i-models from ODBC-compatible third-party applications such as Microsoft Office, reporting systems, and Business Intelligence applications. It allows application developers to use familiar tools to access and present i-model data from databases. When the driver is installed, the Bentley i-model ODBC Driver User Manual (Bentley_i-model_ODBC_Driver_User_Manual.pdf) is also installed.
• Bentley DGN IFilter, Bentley DGN Thumbnail Provider, Bentley DGN Indexer, HDR Preview Handler, Bentley i-model ODBC Driver, and Bentley DgnDb i-model Importer are installed as separate applications. When you uninstall AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition , these applications are not removed. If you do not need them, you will have to uninstall them separately.

Companion Installations

The AECOsim Building Designer installer includes Companion Installations.

There are two types of Companion Installations, namely, Companion Features and Companion Products. Both Companion Features and Companion Products can be configured from the AECOsim Building Designer installer and may require an additional license.

A Companion Feature is a layered application that runs inside AECOsim Building Designer. It is installed independently from the AECOsim Building Designer installer.

A Companion Product is a completely independent application, which does not require AECOsim Building Designer to run. It is installed from AECOsim Building Designer but can be uninstalled or updated separately, from the Windows Add/Remove programs.