Mike,

Sorry for the confusion around this. The correct procedure is to install it once as admin and then have non-admin users simply add the toolbox to their instance of ArcGIS. The procedure for that is:

1.    Close all ArcGIS programs.

2.    Start ArcCatalog.

3.    If the ArcToolbox window is not already visible, open it by clicking the red ArcToobox icon on the main toolbar.

4.    Right click the top node (called ArcToolbox) and select Add Toolbox.

5.    Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\GeoEco\ArcGISToolbox and add the toolbox there. (On 32-bit Windows, use C:\Program Files, without the “(x86)”).

6.    Close ArcCatalog.

This should probably be the first step in a GIS lab exercise that involves MGET for the first time. From this point forward, the toolbox will appear in the ArcToolbox window for ArcCatalog and all new ArcMap documents, for that user. Existing ArcMap documents will not show the toolbox, because each ArcMap document persists its own customized ArcToolbox. Users can add it manually inside of ArcMap following steps 4 and 5 above. New ArcMap documents will initialize themselves with the ArcToolbox from ArcCatalog.

This begs the question: why can’t the MGET installer make this work automatically? It is because the installer must call some custom ESRI COM APIs to add the toolbox to the ArcToolbox list. These APIs modify something in the user’s local profile folder (under Application Data, I think). ESRI does not say how to accomplish this for users other than the logged-on user. They do not say, for example, how to do this for the Windows Default profile, so that new non-admin logons pick up a modified list of default toolboxes when their local profile is initialized for the first time.

It might be theoretically possible to add the toolbox for all users who have previously logged on and established a local profile by looping through those users and running ArcCatalog under their account (similar to using the “runas” command). But even if this could be done, it would be VERY slow. You may have noticed a big pause at the end of the MGET install, where the installer appears to hang. This is due to the installer starting ArcCatalog, adding the toolbox, and waiting for ArcCatalog to exit. It often takes 30 to 120 seconds. Multiply that by each user who has logged on and established a local profile… We decided it was just not worth it.

All that said, I know we could improve our documentation around this. I’ll put that on our To Do list.

Best,

Jason