imageI recently installed InventorCAM on a fresh new Windows 7 operating system and sparkling clean Autodesk Inventor 2011. I have done this in the past and all went quite smoothly, but this time something went wrong.  During the install of InventorCAM, I the Visual C++ distributable package seemed to falter, and after a warning or two, the Aladdin Hasp driver failed to install. Ooh, that doesn’t sound good. I went ahead and plugged in my InventorCAM USB key, and got no response, and no pretty red light. Sure enough the hasp driver isn’t loading.

The only difference we could determine from the previous installations is the presence Autodesk Vault Professional and its license manager. It’s possible that the Aladdin driver would not install due to a conflict. For whatever reason, it does not create a problem later.

There are two parts to the InventorCAM USB Key software. One is the Aladdin SRM Runtime Environment (driver), and the other being the License Manager and its Hasp Loader.

Subsequent attempts to get the driver installed would not load because of Aladdin’s own license manager, which had installed properly, and is running.

Solution

If this has happened to you, give this a try. Navigate to the InventorCAM utility folder, and look for the following File: HaspSMDriver.exe.

My Win7 / Vista 64 path is C:\Program Files (x86)\InventorCAM2010\Util\HaspSMDriver.exe

Use the run option from the OS Start Menu, by entering “Run” in the OS search field. Run.exe will open the Run Dialog, and allow us to browse and enter a value similar to the following convention:

C:\Program Files (x86)\InventorCAM2010\Util\HaspSMDriver.exe –i

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The –i will force the Aladdin driver to install again. If it goes properly, then your set. If not, you’ll likely get the following error:

New Bitmap Image (3)

The Hasp driver will not load while Aladdin’s License Manager is running. Fortunately, the instructions to the solution are provided in the dialog box.

Use net stop, a command line interface that can stop services manually. Start a command line dialog process by typing ‘cmd’ in the OS Start Menu search field. A command prompt dialog will appear.

Enter: Net Stop “Hasp Loader”  exactly like the warning dialog mentioned. You should get a message saying the service has been stopped.

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Return to the run dialog, and try the install again. This time you should receive a message saying the Aladdin service install successfully. When you plug in your InventorCAM USB Key, after a few seconds the pretty little red light will appear.