Autodesk Inventor LT - Don't Move/Resize VMWare Active Session

When first released we recommended that customers not try to run the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview on VMWare or on VirtualPC. Customers reported that there seemed to be a problem with running the application in software graphics mode. This seemed plausible since Direct3D is not available on virtual systems.

Inventor QA expert, Bob Van der Donck, conducted some testing on a VMWare Workstation and had no graphics issues. Others tested using both the VMWare player and workstation and were able to reproduce the graphics issue only on the VMWare player on a consistent basis.

The exact step to cause the graphics issue is to either move or resize the VMWare player when in an active Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview session. For Example:

1. VMWare Player
2. Activate Autodesk Inventor LT session (no open documents)
3. Resize VMWare Player - everything is OK
4. Create a 2D Sketch – graphics issue occurs
5. In the same VMWare Player session, invoke another instance of Autodesk Inventor LT
6. Create 2D Sketch – everything is OK
7. Resize VMWare Player – graphics issue occurs

So, there is a workaround. It is possible to use the Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview on VMWare player as long as you don’t move/resize the VMWare player window during an active session. If you do move/resize the VMWare player window, just close your current session and start a new one. This graphics issue does not happen on VMWare workstation.

Getting to the bottom of the feedback provided by our Autodesk Inventor LT Technology Preview users is alive in the lab.