ADMIN_IMAGE_PATH Trailing Slash Handling Inconsistency in 3ds Max 2024 Deployment Tool

Goal: Ensure that silent deployments of 3ds Max 2024 succeed regardless of whether the ADMIN_IMAGE_PATH environment variable contains a trailing slash.

The Deployment Tool strips the slash only when the variable is passed on the command line, but preserves it when read from a system environment variable, causing the installer to look for a non‑existent empty‑string subfolder and fail with error 0x80070003. Documentation states that the variable should not have a trailing slash, yet the tool does not normalize the value, leaving the administrator to manage the inconsistency. This behavior differs from the 2023 Deployment Tool, which silently ignores trailing slashes, and may affect other products that share the same variable.

• Should the Deployment Tool automatically trim trailing slashes from ADMIN_IMAGE_PATH?
• What are the risks of applying such normalization when multiple Autodesk products share the variable?
• Is a manual trim or batch‑script workaround the preferred long‑term approach?