Frequently asked questions about installing or upgrading Rhino

Question: “Can I get Rhino v5 WIP if I own Rhino 3 but not Rhino 4?”

Question: “What do I need to do to get my Rhino 4.0 Upgrade to install?”

Answer: The Rhino 4.0 Upgrade installer will install if one of the following is true. It is checked in order:

Rhino 3.0 is installed

Rhino 2.0 is installed

Rhino 1.1 is installed

Rhino 1.0 is installed

Rhino 3.0 CD is inserted into the CD drive during installation

Rhino 2.0 CD is inserted into the CD drive during installation

Rhino 1.1 CD is inserted into the CD drive during installation

Rhino 1.0 CD is inserted into the CD drive during installation

Transferring personalized settings from one Rhino 4 install to another

Question: I've got a new computer and I want to install Rhino version X SR Y. I have always purchased upgrade versions of Rhino. Do I have to install ALL previous versions and sucessive service packs??

Answer: Simply install the last upgrade version you have on CD. During the install, you will be asked to insert the CD of a previous version to validate that you have it, but it is not necessary to actually INSTALL the previous versions. Once you have installed the last CD version, proceed to install the latest Service Release - it is not necessary to install previous ones.

These installers are downloadable and will only install if you have a version of the product already installed. Service Releases are identified two ways: the SR number, like SR3 or SR4b; and the date, which is coded into the name of the download file like 20050729, meaning July 29, 2005.

Once you have the software installed, you can see the date and the SR number by viewing the “about” information, which appears on the “splash screen” when you start Rhino, or can be viewed by doing Rhino > Help > About Rhinoceros.

For Flamingo, do the FlamingoAbout command. For Bongo, do the BongoAbout command.

The quick way is to use the Check for Updates service. In Rhino, pull down the Help menu, and pick Check for Updates. If you are connected to the internet, the McNeel web servers will offer the correct Service Release if there is one newer than your software. For Flamingo, pull down the Raytrace or Photometric menu and pick Check for Updates. For Bongo, pull down the Bongo menu and pick Check for Updates.

The “Add or Remove Programs” entry in the Control Panel in Windows is reporting all Service Releases as an installed program, each using approx. 250MB of disk space. This is somewhat misleading. Windows reports the total as though all installed files are added on to the existing installation even though many if not all files are actually overwritten on install. Do not use the “Add or Remove Programs” to remove older Service Releases of Rhino 4.0.

See this page DebugInstaller for instructions on how to generate a logfile of the error and get Technical Support involved.

Question: I get “Error 1327. Invalid Drive (E:, F:, etc)” when installing

Cause: Your user account has settings indicating that one or more non-existent drives should be used for special folders such as “My Documents”

Solution:

1. From the Start menu, click Run.
2. Type RegEdit, then click Run
3. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
4. Look for directories listed that contain the drive letter mentioned in the error from the installer. Change them to point to a valid drive and folder.
5. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
6. Look for directories listed that contain the drive letter mentioned in the error from

Note: This method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

Deploying Rhino - Technique for silent/scripted installs, details of folders and registry, etc.