Tag Archives: ArcGIS Desktop
Getting to Know Esri Support: Amy A.
An interview with ArcGIS Desktop analyst, and Parcel Editor / ArcPad specialist, Amy A. In our continuing series, “Getting to Know Esri Support”, we interviewed Amy who is a support analyst for the Redlands, CA office. Office – Redlands, CA Hometown … Continue reading
5 Minute Troubleshooting: When in Doubt Try a New MXD
Have you ever been doing a process that you have done time and time again, but the results are different or acting sporadic? Examples of this could be an inability to snap a to layer, being unable to save your … Continue reading
New ArcGIS Performance calibration tool
Ever wonder how long your Desktop application takes to render mapped features on a layer to layer basis? Or have you ever needed to know the time it takes to edit mapped features from a particular edit version?
Adding Extensions to ArcGIS Desktop
ArcGIS Desktop has a lot of useful extensions beyond the core product. Some of the available extensions include ArcGIS Spatial Analyst, ArcGIS 3D Analyst, ArcGIS Network Analyst, and ArcGIS Data Interoperability. Each of the extensions can be evaluated before purchasing.
Is your raster so bright you have to wear shades?
Have you ever added a raster to an MXD and noticed that it looked different? Or created a mosaic dataset or raster catalog and suddenly, the rasters are so bright, you think, “What did ArcMap do to my raster?!”
ArcGIS 10 Now Available in Six Languages
Customers in the United States can visit the Customer Care Portal for more information about how to get ArcGIS 10 in English, French, German, Neutral Spanish, Japanese or Simplified Chinese. Customers outside the United States should contact their local Esri office for details.
ArcGIS 9.3.1 Service Pack 2 is now available!
We are pleased to announce that ArcGIS 9.3.1 Service Pack 2 was released today. We recommend that all ArcGIS 9.3.1 users download and install Service Pack 2 at their earliest convenience, to ensure the highest quality experience when working with ArcGIS 9.3.1.
With Service Pack 2 now available, there is an accompanying list of the issues that were addressed within the new service pack. These issues are listed in the links below under the “Issues Addressed” section. Many of these issues came directly from customers reporting them to Esri Support Services and were prioritized to be included in this service pack.
For details on each individual product’s service pack, the issues addressed, instructions on how to install the service pack and other information, see each product’s link below:
If you run into any issues with the installation of this service pack or have any feedback, please contact Esri Technical Support at 1-888-377-4575 option 2. International sites, please contact your local Esri software distributor.
Mike H., Program Manager
User Advocacy Group, Esri Support Services
Farewell to VBA
Some of you may already be aware that VBA will be deprecated after version 10 of ArcGIS Desktop.
Microsoft discontinued distributing VBA licenses to new customers as of July 2007 and encourages customers to use .Net Framework, instead. Esri has decided to be coherent with Microsoft’s stance on VBA. The word has been out there since this Developer blog post was published last year: VBA and VB6 with ArcGIS: What’s the Story?
Please refer the following blog post for additional details about VBA support in ArcGIS Desktop at 10: ArcGIS Desktop and VBA?
For further information on support for VBA, please see page 5 of the Product Deprecation Notice.
Please provide any questions or comments that you may have via the comments section below this post. NOTE: You must be logged in to your Esri Global Account to leave comments.
- Kaushik M., Support Analyst, SDK group – Esri Support Services
ArcGIS Desktop: It doesn’t have to be kept under lock and key!
Hi there! This is Randall with the Server Usage and Implementation groups at ESRI’s Eastern Support Services.
We often hear concerns from customers regarding difficulties working with the ArcGIS Desktop licensing requirements. Specifically, a lot of customers still use the parallel or USB style hardware lock, which prior to ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 was required when using the license manager. There are a number of use cases where reliance on a physical hardware key is not just annoying, but is also not practical.
Not only does the hardware dongle take up a USB port, but it’s also cumbersome, as it sticks out of the machine in unwieldy positions. Occasionally, customers would break their hardware keys because of an unfortunate blow to the back or side of a laptop, lose the hardware key, or even damage the USB port that the key was plugged into. Sometimes, customers have even reported that the hardware key stopped functioning all together, which causes production stoppages as customers wait for new licensing materials to be delivered.
In other cases, an organization’s IT staff may undertake measures to reduce the cost of ownership of enterprise servers and take steps to virtualize as many machines as possible. In that case, customers previously needed to rely on third party solutions to ‘map’ a physical hardware key to the license manager service on a physical machine, which is not an ideal or stable solution at all.
To alleviate these types of issues, starting at ArcGIS Desktop 9.3, ESRI has released a ‘keyless’ license manager that binds to the network adapter’s MAC address, instead of a hardware lock. The keyless license manager, which is available for download and is also shipped with ArcGIS Desktop version 9.3.1, helps to overcome limitations stemming from the previous physical hardware key requirement of concurrent use and ArcInfo-level software licensing.
Moving to the new keyless license manager is simple. Visit the ESRI Customer Support Site and follow the instructions to request a new keyless license file. Once you receive your new license file via email, download and install the keyless license manager. As always, if you run into trouble along the way, ESRI Support Services is always available to assist you.
-Randall W., Server Usage and Implementation groups, ESRI Eastern Support Services
Sharing data and documents across the various versions of ArcGIS Desktop
Hi all! This is Jim B. with the Eastern Support Services Desktop unit and a few tips to keep you going strong. We each have found ourselves in situations where customers, clients and colleagues are using different versions of ArcGIS Desktop. If you upgrade immediately after a new release, you may find the need to share geodatabases or map documents with those who haven’t had a chance to upgrade yet. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to share data and documents between versions of ArcGIS Desktop.
Map Documents
To send a map document that is compatible with an earlier release of ArcGIS Desktop, you’ll need to save it for that particular version. For example, if you are using ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 and you need to send your map document to a colleague that is using ArcGIS Desktop 9.2, a copy of the map document needs to be saved specifically for ArcGIS Desktop 9.2. To do this:
- Open the Map document you need to send.
- Go to the File Menu and scroll down to ‘Save a Copy’.
- In the ‘Save a Copy’ dialog box, add a ‘File Name’ for the document and ‘Save a Copy’ as “ArcMap 9.2 Document”.
- Click ‘Save’.
This saves a copy of your ArcGIS Desktop 9.3.1 map document that is compatible with ArcGIS Desktop 9.2.
Geodatabases
Sometimes it is necessary to share entire geodatabases with others, but they could all be using different versions of ArcGIS Desktop. With the exception of ArcGIS Desktop versions 9.0 and 9.1 as well as version 9.2 SP5/SP6 and 9.3 being compatible with each other, previous versions of ArcGIS Desktop cannot read or access geodatabases created from later releases of ArcGIS Desktop. It is possible to work around this by adding feature classes to a geodatabase that was created using an earlier release. To do this:
- Make sure that the Geodatabase does not contain any objects that are specific to the newer release.
- Create a new personal geodatabase using the previous release of ArcGIS Desktop.
- With the current release of ArcGIS Desktop, copy/paste the data into the geodatabase created by the previous release of ArcGIS Desktop.
- The geodatabase now contains the data from the current geodatabase and can be used by the previous release of ArcGIS Desktop.
More details can be found using the following links to the Knowledge Base:
How can previous versions of ArcGIS Desktop connect to geodatabases created with newer releases?
So, the next time you have a colleague that needs documents and data for an earlier release of ArcGIS Desktop and they think it’s impossible, you’ll be able to impress them using your new knowledge of the sharing capabilities of ArcGIS Desktop.
- Jim B., Desktop group, Eastern Support Services – Charlotte, NC
