CTC HIVE
™
Installation and Configuration Guide
Includes:
HIVE
HIVE Project Activity Logger
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 2 of 15
Contents
General Requirements Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Revit and Civil 3D Workstations .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Workstation Installation ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
Standard Interactive Installation Using the Setup Program ............................................................................................... 4
Custom Installation (Using Command-Line Parameters) .................................................................................................... 7
Silent Installation............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Installation Tips for Multi-User Computers ........................................................................................................................ 7
Updating the Software ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Configuring Project Activity Logger ..................................................................................................................................... 8
Launching HIVE .................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Detecting the Version Installed ........................................................................................................................................... 9
Digitally Signed Code ......................................................................................................................................................... 10
CTC Certificate Installer Utility .......................................................................................................................................... 10
Managing the Revit Ribbon Tab Used ............................................................................................................................... 12
Managing the Contact Support Button Visibility ............................................................................................................... 13
Workstation Uninstallation ................................................................................................................................................ 14
Using Apps ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Silent Uninstallation Using a Command Line .................................................................................................................... 15
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 3 of 15
CTC HIVE Overview
The CTC HIVE software contains an extremely powerful Content Management System (CMS) to help you effectively and
efficiently manage content files, with a focus on design software content files such as for Revit or Civil 3D.
General Requirements Summary
The HIVE software installer does not require administrative privileges to install. It includes add-ins for Revit and Civil 3D.
It must be installed for each user on the workstation who will be using it.
Revit and Civil 3D Workstations
In accordance with Autodesk standards for addins, during the installation the user does not get to choose where the
software will be installed on their local hard drives.
The addins will get installed to folders like the following examples, for each user for which it’s installed.
For Revit –
%AppData%\Autodesk\Revit\addins\2019\CTC-HIVE.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\Revit\addins\2020\CTC-HIVE.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\Revit\addins\2021\CTC-HIVE.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\Revit\addins\2022\CTC-HIVE.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\Revit\addins\2023\CTC-HIVE.bundle\Contents
For Civil 3D –
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\CTC-HIVE-2019.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\CTC-HIVE-2020.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\CTC-HIVE-2021.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\CTC-HIVE-2022.bundle\Contents
%AppData%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\CTC-HIVE-2023.bundle\Contents
Where %AppData% is the user’s personal roaming folder.
This folder will also contain key files for HIVE:
%AppData%\CTC Software\HIVE CMS
The following folders will also contain files needed by the CTC Software suites:
%AppData%\CTC Software
C:\Users\Public\CTC Software
C:\Users\Public\CTC Software\Licensing
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 4 of 15
Workstation Installation
Standard Interactive Installation Using the Setup Program
A standard installation simply involves running the interactive setup program for HIVE.
Double-click the HIVE installation CTCHIVESetup.msi file to begin the installation process.
Click the Next button.
NOTE: At this point if Revit or Civil 3D is running, you will be required to shut them down before you can proceed.
NOTE: At this point if there is conflicting CTC Software installed, you will be told it needs to be uninstalled. Most of the
time the installer can uninstall them for you if you happen to have administrative privileges on the computer. If not, an
administrator must uninstall them before you can proceed. CTC does have updates to all products that will work with
this installer, as needed.
Once all prerequisites have been met, the next screen will appear:
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 5 of 15
You must accept the license agreement to continue.
At this point, click the Install button to begin the installation.
Clicking the Install button begins the process of updating your computer:
Once complete, you’ll see the final screen:
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 6 of 15
If you leave the “Launch HIVE” checkbox checked, when you click the Finish button, HIVE will open automatically.
If you leave the “Read the Installation and Configuration Guide” checkbox checked, when you click the Finish button this
document will open automatically.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 7 of 15
Custom Installation (Using Command-Line Parameters)
Silent Installation
The msi installers for the workstations support performing silent installations. A silent installation does not show any
dialogs on the screen during the install.
This is accomplished by using the command-line parameter: /q
For example, the command to install CTC BIM Suites silently is:
msiexec /i CTCHIVESetup.msi /q
IMPORTANT: By choosing to do a silent installation, you are automatically agreeing to the software license agreement.
Installation Tips for Multi-User Computers
If your environment includes computers on which multiple users can login to a computer at the same time, and even if
each user may login to a different host computer (node) each time they connect, one technique to ensure a user has the
correct version of the software installed no matter which node they login to is to simply run the silent installer every
time they login, no matter where they login.
For example, if the installer is on your network drive, you could either modify their login script or perhaps push out via
Group Policy a command such as this, to run each time they login:
msiexec /i “N:\Software Installs\CTCHIVESetup.msi” /q
If the msi is run silently for installation for this user a second (or more) time on the same computer when it’s already
been installed, it will effectively do nothing.
This makes updating the software for the users trivial as well. Simply replace the msi file on the network drive with the
new one, and the next time each user logs in, they’ll automatically get the updated version.
NOTE: For updates, this only applies to newer versions of the software. Going back to an older version would require
uninstalling the newer version first. The command-line to silently uninstall the software is listed near the end of this
document.
Because each user gets their own isolated installation, another situation that can be useful is in the case where you have
early test users. For example, if you have a small team of users you want to have test a new release before all users get
it, those test users could run a newer setup from a different location on the network.
Updating the Software
When updating a workstation to a new release of the software, typically uninstalling an old version is NOT required.
Running the latest setup is all that should be needed.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 8 of 15
Configuring Project Activity Logger
If you have a license for the Project Activity Logger (PAL) component of HIVE, you will need to configure it so that PAL
knows to send the project activity data to your CTC account.
If PAL is not configured, it will be dormant.
To configure PAL, you must login to the CTC portal (at https://ctcsoftware.com) as an organization administrator.
Once logged in, click on the PROJECTS tab, and then click on the Settings option on the side:
Once on the settings page, click on the DOWNLOAD CONFIG button at the bottom.
This will generate a custom HiveConfig.json file with your account information in it, and will start the download for it.
Once the HiveConfig.json file is downloaded, you must copy it to the following folder on each computer for which you
want to capture activity data:
C:\Users\Public\CTC Software\Licensing
Once the HiveConfig.json file is in this folder, the HIVE PAL tool can start sending project activity data to your account on
the CTC Software portal.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 9 of 15
Launching HIVE
HIVE can be launched by the user from either the Start menu (under the CTC Software folder):
Or from the desktop directly:
HIVE can also be launched from within Revit, from the ribbon:
Detecting the Version Installed
A text file called "SuiteVersion.txt" with only the software version (e.g. "23.0") in it can be found in the installation
folder.
For example: %AppData%\CTC Software\HIVE CMS\SuiteVersion.txt
The contents of this file may be useful for easily checking to see which version is installed via a script.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 10 of 15
Digitally Signed Code
All CTC Express Tools add-ins are digitally signed. The MSI setup programs from CTC will automatically install the CTC
digital certificate file into the Windows Trusted Publishers certificates section for the computer.
If the CTC add-ins are deployed using another method, such as if embedded in an Autodesk deployment, the CTC
certificate will NOT automatically get installed into Windows, and the user will be prompted to allow the CTC add-in to
load the first time they launch the Autodesk product.
The CTC digital certificate file, CTCCodeSigningCertificate.cer, can be found in the main installation folder:
%AppData%\CTC Software\HIVE CMS
This file can be added to the Trusted Publisher’s store in any normal manner, for example via Group Policy.
CTC Certificate Installer Utility
CTC also provides a small utility to add the CTC Certificate to Windows, which can be used for non-MSI deployments.
This program is called CTCCertificateInstaller.exe and is located in the same folder as the certificate file, as seen above.
IMPORTANT: For this program to work, the CTCCodeSigningCertificate.cer certificate file must be in the same folder
as this program.
In order for this program to install the certificate such that it will work for all users who login to the computer, it must be
run with the highest privileges (e.g. run “As Administrator”). If it is not run “As Administrator” it will only install the
certificate for the currently logged in user.
When run as a regular user, a window appears when complete showing this:
In this case, when the current user starts up the Autodesk product(s), no messages from Autodesk will interrupt the
startup process for any CTC products. However, if another user logs into this machine, they will see the dialog asking
what to do with the signed add-in that was found, as seen above.
When the program is run “As Administrator”, a window appears when complete showing this:
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 11 of 15
In this case, regardless of who logs into the computer, the Autodesk product for the add-ins will open smoothly, without
asking the user what to do.
The CTCCertificateInstaller.exe program supports the following command-line parameters:
/Q – quiet. In quiet mode, no dialog window is ever displayed.
/L – Log file location. If a log file is specified, the results seen in the example dialogs above will be written to a new text
file specified, overwriting any previous file that may have been there previously.
Example:
CTCCertificateInstaller.exe /Q /L “C:\My Folder\My Cert Installer Log File.txt”
(The /Q and /L may be lowercase)
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 12 of 15
Managing the Revit Ribbon Tab Used
The settings for ribbon button icon appearance, including on which Revit ribbon tab they appear, are stored in this text
file:
%AppData%\CTC Software\HIVE CMS\CTC HIVE Common Files\CTC HIVE Icon Settings.txt
This file will not appear until Revit is started the first time after the software is installed. These settings will apply
regardless of which version of Revit is launched, and will not be overwritten if an updated version of the software is
installed.
The default file looks like this:
For example, this setting:
RevitRibbonTabName=
puts the buttons on the default Add-Ins tab, and appears this way in Revit:
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 13 of 15
Managing the Contact Support Button Visibility
The Contact Support button can be found on the Revit ribbon:
The first time Revit is run with a CTC suite installed, a configuration file is created which controls the visibility of this
button:
C:\Users\Public\CTC Software\Suite Settings\Contact Support Settings.xml
Which looks like this:
As some organizations may want to control how support for Revit users is handled (e.g. internally) this tool can be
turned off.
Changing the highlighted value to: false
will prevent this button from being visible in either the ribbon or from within the tools.
If this file is deployed to Revit workstations before the first time Revit is run with a CTC suite installed, the deployed file
will be used. Errors in the file will result in the button being displayed, which is the default behavior.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 14 of 15
Workstation Uninstallation
HIVE can be uninstalled using the standard method of using the Apps tool built into Windows.
Using Apps
Click Start / Settings:
Click on Apps:
Search for: CTC
Then select the CTC HIVE result:
Then select the Uninstall choice to begin the uninstallation process.
CTC HIVE Installation and Configuration Guide
April 26, 2023
https://www.ctcsoftware.com
Page 15 of 15
Silent Uninstallation Using a Command Line
You can give a command like the following to uninstall the software from a workstation:
msiexec /x CTCHIVESetup.msi /q
This could be executed from a script or possibly pushed out via a group policy.
IMPORTANT: The original msi file used to install the software must be in the current working directory when this
command is executed, or the path to it must be explicitly specified in the command line.
Note that the silent uninstall may take a full minute or two to finish.
