Expert: Scott Cook - 9/15/2009

Question
We are going to be deploying ACA 2010 and our office employs +50 CAD users. We have been asked to configure all the set variables, setvars, to be identical on all machines. In lieu of, setting them on each and every machine. Would it be possible to use a LISP routine to configure and deploy through the network.
Thanks

Answer
Yes, this is very doable and a common task. Don't worry about setting them all - just the ones you care about. You can always add more later. The syntax is (setvar "variablename" value) where variablename in quotes is the name of the variable and the value is what you want to set it to. Text must be inside quotes, numbers are not. Put each on a line by itself for readability.

If you already have a network environment and common shared files (menu, etc) loading up you'll just need to figure out where to put this. I'd put it inside of an existing lisp routine that you know is loading on startup. One of my personal favorites is to use the .mnl files (menu lisp) as a load point for corporate routines. The .mnl file goes alongside a menu you are using and is automatically loaded when the menu is loaded.