OK, so in case you hadn’t put two and two together, Engineered Efficiency, Inc has been working with John Postlewait at George Butler Associates on their C3D implementation. They’ve been pushing the software harder than 90% of the folks out there, and have tested Vault in the real world.

In spite of John’s occasional rant in the NG, he is still pushing forward, and continues in his efforts to make Vault work in his environment. Yesterday, he shared a great little batch file with me, and I’ve gotten his permission to share it with you:

@ECHO OFF

START /W IISRESET /STOP

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Data Management Server 5\Vault Manager\Connectivity.VaultManager.exe” -Opurge -NVault -KEEPVERS1 -EXCLCMT”Save” -VUadministrator -VP -S

IISRESET /START

That’s the magic vault purge script that will keep your server clean. That’s it. Copy and paste that into Notepad, and save as Vaultpurge.bat. Watch for word wrap! There’s one line from the “C:\…” all the way to the “-S” Be aware that this is working on the default install, with a single vault. You could add multiple program calls to have it purge multiple vaults. This script will purge all but one version from your Vault. You can modify it as needed.

Use Windows Task Manager to run it late at night. Notice that it is shutting down the Vault with the IISRESET /STOP portion. If you can, run this on Sunday around 3:00 AM so that nobody gets caught in the shutdown.

Vault is NOT the end of the world folks, and is the only way to fly in C3D 2007. The effort of getting Vault in place is well worth the benefits that come with 2007. Don’t let the fear-mongers and uninformed let you deter from investigating what can be a great solution for your firm…

One last thing: Adesk released a Service Pack. Go read the other blogs for details (and cookies), I’m not going to waste your time or mine posting the same stuff as ten other sources. Inconsistency is key!