27/1/2014 Speed up ArcMap Startup | Getting GIS Help

http://maps.gis.iastate.edu/help/sample-page/speed-up-arcmap-startup/ 1/1
Speed up ArcMap Startup
Methods to start ArcMap faster
If you use the ESRI floating license server at ISU to run ArcGIS, you may experience a 2-3 minute
wait for ArcMap or Catalog to load. There are a variety of reasons ArcMap can be slow to open
but the most common one, and the easiest to fix, is that the software is searching the network for
the correct port to open to talk to our license server. If you hard code that information into your
system, it wont need to search and ArcMap will open more quickly. It should open in around 15
seconds, under optimal conditions.
You have to have Administrator rights on your machine to do the following. You will need to create
a system variable that points ArcMap to the correct port and machine for our ISU license server.
To create the system variable go to:
Start > My Computer (right click it and select Properties) > Advanced > Environment Variables >
System Variables > New
Set the variable name to ARCGIS_LICENSE_FILE and the value to 27004@<server name> where
<server name> is the full name of the ISU license server. To get that name, look in Start >
Programs > ArcGIS > Desktop Administrator > License Manager. Whatever it says in the box on the
right side is what you put in place of <server name>.
Another suggestion from ESRI is to change the User Environment variables for the TMP and TEMP
directories.
To create or modfiy the User variables go to:
Start > My Computer (right click it and select Properties) > Advanced > Environment Variables >
User Variables. Highlight the TEMP or TMP variables in the top box to change their values or click
New if they dont exist. Make the value be c:\temp for both; be sure to create that directory on
your computer first in Windows Explorer.
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