MultiSim - College Students Continually Resetting Software to Basic Mode

[LincolnC]

This is fairly unique request. I currently work as an IT Technician for a College based in England (UK). We appear to have a re-occurring problem with our MultiSim installs across the college. The problem is in relation to students continually resetting the Multisim Application to basic mode, thus removing the majority of menus/toolbar in the process. This is particularly annoying for our lecturers, who have to input a password and then follow about 20 steps to restore those menus.

Can anyone on these boards provide me with a quick fix that will prevent this from occurring, whilst still giving students complete access to all the functionality of the software?

Thank you for your assistance.

Kind regards,

Steven.

[JTG_Wilson]

Hi Steven,

Which Toolbars and Menus are you talking about? Is it the toolbars such as Transistor Components, Analog Components, Simulation etc.?

I assume that the students only have access to Multisim Base but the Lecturers have acess to a higher edition? If so, which edition do the lecturers have access to?

Kind regards,

[LincolnC]

Hi James,

Thank you for your reply.

I have just spoken with the lecturer who has submitted this job and he has told me the problem is with all of the menus/toolbars, apparently they turn purple and are no longer there. He then has to input the Rodney password and follow about 12 steps to reset them. This is not ideal as he has to spend time administering an entire classroom of PC's.

As far as we are aware there is no safeguards in place to stop students placing the application into basic mode. We also have to give students full permissions on the programs folder of MultiSim to allow them to complete their work.

Do you know of any safeguards in the MultiSim application (that we are not aware of) or perhaps a third party application that could prevent the students easily placing Multisim into Basic Mode?

If this is not possible, is there a quick way to reset the menu with out having to input the password and follow the steps? Could we write a script that is pushed out over our network which could reset the Multisim application every time a student logs into the machine?

This incident is only occuring in classrooms, only where students have access.

[JTG_Wilson]

Hi Steven,

What operating system are the machines running on? Is it Windows XP?

And also, what version of MultiSim are you running?

There is a corrective action request on file about purple coloured toolbars in MultiSim that has been fixed, have you tried checking for any updates or fixes that are available?

Kind regards,

[LincolnC]

Hi James.

Thank you for your reply.

We have your software installed on XP SP3 machines. As far as I am aware it is Version 10 that is installed.

I was not aware that there is a fix for the purple tool bars. Thank you I will check for that on the forum now.

Can you assist in regards the students setting the software to basic mode?

[JTG_Wilson]

Hi Steve,

It sounds like an issue with user access rights or licensing.

Since you say that the lecturers and students both use the same edition of Multisim (presumably the Education or Full edition) I would imagine it is to do with user access.

Do the lecturers have administrator rights? or if not, you may need to look at which rights they have that the students don't.

Kind regards,

[GarretF]

Hi Steven,

You might have already solved your problem, but if not, there are a couple of ways to solve this problem. Multisim's restrictions are stored in a configuration file located at

C:\ProgramData\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite\<VERSION>\config\multisim.cnf

The solution is to either prevent students from editing this file or to replace the file each time a user logs in.

The best solutions for a centrally managed lab are:

1. Change the file permissions so that normal user accounts only have read access

2. Automatically overwrite this file with the default after installation each time a user logs in

Either option will solve the problem, and I recommend whichever is easier for you to implement in your lab.