Troubleshooting and Customizing Setup

To install Carlson 2018 on Windows, you must have Administrator permissions to write to the system registry during the install.

Successful install of Carlson consists of four key items:

1. Windows registry settings
2. Carlson icon on desktop and in the Start menu
3. Carlson 2018 profile created in AutoCAD or IntelliCAD
4. carlson.ini configuration file in USER sub-directory of Carlson

The Carlson profile in AutoCAD/IntelliCAD is created and configured by the helper application called SCJSTART. The application is typically located in C:\ProgramData\Carlson Software\Carlson2018\ followed by subfolder specific to CAD version. Please note that ProgramData is folder hidden by default Windows Explorer settings. In this location, there is a file called scjstart.ini which is generated during install and which controls SCJSTART.EXE behavior. 

If you have trouble starting the application, review the scjstart.ini contents to see if anything on the system has changed since the installation and needs to be corrected.

Desktop and Menu icons for Carlson 2018

A Carlson specific profile is used in order to configure Carlson correctly and start the Carlson menu when AutoCAD or IntelliCAD starts. Profiles are used by the CAD to separate different product environments.If profile is missing, the profile from old version of Carlson will be used as template to copy to new version or if that is not present, the first of the existing profiles is used instead. Once profile is copied, it is adjusted to start new version of Carlson.

Carlson shortcuts point to the scjstart.exe and command line parameter called STATE controls which module activated when the product is launched.

To verify that your Carlson icon is set up correctly, do the following:

• Right click on the Carlson icon and select Properties. Click on the Shortcut tab.
• Target field should contain the following executable SCJSTART.EXE (located in the Carlson\USER directory).
• Work directory defaults to the same directory where drawings are stored
• Make changes as needed and click OK.




User can control which template is used to create new drawings in the program by specifying additional command line switch to the Target field of the shortcut. Add TEMPLATE=template_name.dwt to the end of the input. You can create a copy of shortcut with different template name to be able to switch between templates. The template being specified should already be known to the program by being within one of the searched folders.

Checking Carlson.INI configuration file.
The last step in troubleshooting the installation is to verify the Carlson.INI file in the Carlson USER directory. Open that file using Notepad (Click Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad) or any other editor. Then verify and/or modify the top few lines to match your setup. Save it and restart Carlson.

If the procedures outlined above did not help or you have trouble following them, please feel free to contact Carlson Software Tech Support.