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Multi-user Mastercam Network Location Best Practices


Gecko779
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Here is the folder structure I've created.

Notice in the first image that we have a folder for each major release. That's so we can have multiple versions installed while we transition to a new version. We also discovered that breaking our custom holders and tools into its own folder is critical. If you open a Mastercam 2016 file and the tools lived in the since archived Mastercam 2016 folder then we'll get warnings for missing tools.

image.png.e3115911fe799f042384523cdf71ded7.png

 

Inside of the major release folder we have an individual my mcam folder for each user and a common shared mcam folder. Lastly, there's a temp folder we've been playing with as a place to store NCI or other temp files. We currently found that pointing NCI files to a local disk folder works better.

image.png.521e6a6319b3caf1b94c2335a92d39fc.png

 

One problem we are still having is files being overwritten on a new install of Mastercam. When we start the fresh install of Mastercam and point the my mcam 2019 folder to the network location it overwrites everything in the server directory. This happens even if we tell Windows not to overwrite them. We've found it best to either point to the server location in the registry or to make a copy of the my mcam directory before pointing. We've been using this folder structure for three years and have been very happy with it.

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52 minutes ago, Eric Allen said:

Here is the folder structure I've created.

Notice in the first image that we have a folder for each major release. That's so we can have multiple versions installed while we transition to a new version. We also discovered that breaking our custom holders and tools into its own folder is critical. If you open a Mastercam 2016 file and the tools lived in the since archived Mastercam 2016 folder then we'll get warnings for missing tools.

image.png.e3115911fe799f042384523cdf71ded7.png

 

I use the same Structure but i still have all the folders from V9 to MCAM 2019 lol  

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Nice! I'd like to add that keeping a few old versions of this folder structure has been very helpful. We have one computer with multiple old versions of Mastercam installed. More than once we've opened an old  Mastercam in a new Mastercam version and had issues. We've then been able to go to the computer with old versions installed and see how it opened there.

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15 hours ago, Eric Allen said:

Nice! I'd like to add that keeping a few old versions of this folder structure has been very helpful. We have one computer with multiple old versions of Mastercam installed. More than once we've opened an old  Mastercam in a new Mastercam version and had issues. We've then been able to go to the computer with old versions installed and see how it opened there.

i keep X9 just for those files, since the major change in 2017 , updating files from earlier X version can give you some wacky things 

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I run 4 separate workstations, two of which are held on the shop floor, 2 in the office. Sometimes with a prototype ill want to not run back to my office to push a small change, so I will set up shop on the floor computer. For this reason, I use shared network drives. Granted, these are highly secure network drives with penetration protection and serious security measures in place, running off local servers. 

I keep a hard copy of machine/control defs and posts on my personal workstation, and any changes i make to those files i push them to the appropriate network location. Same with my tools and holders. I have a "master" file for everything. Nothing becomes "master" until it is completely debugged and proofed locally first. Since i work off multiple locations, i cant be running around to each one updating the local drives for say, a post update. All of my configs point to the network locations. Its a huge pain in the xxxx setting it up, but its worth it for what i am doing. With each Mastercam release, there is some work involved, but nothing too bad. 

I also have another network location for pushing NC files to machines since they are all networked now. I can store those there for later use and passcode protect them for proofed files, or use them in one-off parts and throw them away after. We do mostly small batch single runs, so this works for me. 

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I facilitate about 15 MasterCAM workstations and 20 or so users who jump between the workstations.  I've created on my network a secured location containing exact duplicates of the "my mcamXXXX" and "shared mcamXXXX" locations.  These locations contain all of our posts, machine defs, control defs, config file, workspace, tool library, material library, operations defaults, and operations library.  I use AD GPP User policy at logon to copy the default company config (which has all the network locations set) and workspace locally, set the MasterCAM registry to point to that config file, and create icons on the desktop for authorized MasterCAM users.  

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@Eric Allen,

There are two locations where you need to set the SharedMcam folder location in the registry

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CNC Software, Inc.\Mastercam 2019 and Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CNC Software, Inc.\Mastercam 2019

In both locations you can double click on the SharedDir string and put the network location in the value data.  Then your shared mcam folder should be pointed to that folder on your network or server.  

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Thanks Chris. I've narrowed it down to being when I change the My Mcam location. If I change locations inside of Mastercam the CURRENT_USER key is updated and it works, but if I just change the CURRENT_USER location Mastercam crashes and then changes the key to C:\program files\MCAM 2019

The reason I don't like to change it in Mastercam is there is no way to stop it from overwriting the My Mcam files on the server. I'm forced to make a copy and then overwrite them back. I want to automate this in the registry of I can.

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4 minutes ago, Eric Allen said:

Could you expand on this? Every time I try to edit the registry to point to the proper server locations it crashes Mastercam on open

Basically I set \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\CNC Software, Inc.\Mastercam 2018\StartUp\UserCfg (string Value) to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\my mcam2018\CONFIG\my_default_config.config.

I do this all at logon with Group Policy Preferences in Active Directory.  Since any time a user loads another config it changes the registry key I force the change at each logon.   If you're running a Windows Domain Controller with AD and you'd like a more detailed explanation of the GPP portion, let me know.  

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