Use the Inventor Reset Utility to fix Inventor

Have you ever found yourself perched out of a second story window with computer in hand, contemplating it’s demise because your Inventor program has stopped functioning the way you think it should?  Then, hopefully this little post will talk you “off of the ledge”.  If you are experiencing some of the following issues, then you might want to try this cool little utility which should fix that, … read on.

If you are having trouble using the Export to AutoCAD DWG, or are unable to launch an Inventor add-in, and you can’t figure out why.  Or, maybe add-in commands are grayed in the ribbon, or Inventor just crashes when entering add-in workspace, then you just might have a damaged set of local user account settings, which can prevent Inventor from completely functioning properly. Rather than throwing in the towel and throwing out your computer, try using the Inventor Reset Utility to bring your Inventor back to full and proper functionality.

The first thing you will need to do is make a back up of all ribbon, keyboard, and marking menu (GUI) customizations.  To do this you will need to go to Tools > Options > Customize, and then select the Export… button to create an XML file.

Next, make a back up of all of the Application Options by selecting Tools > Options > Application Options, and again, select the Export… button.

You are now ready to run the Inventor Reset Utility tool, and you can download it from the following Autodesk web page.  This page also contains information and instructions about using this tool. Simply download the ZIP file, extract the contents, and then launch the EXE file.  The tool will automatically detect which versions of Inventor have been run, and you can then select which one to apply the fix to.  If you choose to run the tool on multiple versions, make sure each versions’ settings are backed up.