AutoCAD, a Switch Hitter

Have you ever wanted to have AutoCAD perform certain things during launch? Perhaps not have that AutoCAD splash screen come up on launch or run a specific script or routine? There is a way to make these things happen. You may have noticed in the AutoCAD Icon that there are these strange things in the startup string (example: “c:\program files\AutoCAD 2010\ACAD.exe” /p <>). These are known as Startup Switches and they can make life very nice for those wanting to add a little more to their launch.

How do you access these Startup Switches?
1.) Locate the AutoCAD Icon on your desktop
2.) Highlight the Icon
3.) Right click and select Copy
4.) Right click on the background on your desktop and select Paste
5.) Highlight the new Icon
6.) Right click and select Properties
7.) Find the Target path this is where the magic takes place


How do these switches work?
I will use an example. I want to automatically load a custom profile I created internally on my Profile Tab in the Options Dialog called ACADSWITCHES. The Target would look like this.
“C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2010\ACAD.exe” /P “ACADSWITCHES”

1.)“C:\Program Files\AutoCAD 2010\ACAD.exe” this part is used to launch AutoCAD it is just running ACAD.EXE which is the AutoCAD program
2.) /P this is the switch that says load this profile after you launch
3.)“ACADSWITCHES” This is the profile that is loaded when this icon is used to start the program
4.) Here is an example using more than one switch
“C:\Program Files\AutoCAD2010\ACAD.exe” /P “ACADSWITCHES /NOHARDWARE /NOLOGO,
this will Launch AutoCAD and set the ACADSWITCHES profile current, it won’t display the splash screen and it turns off the Hardware Acceleration in AutoCAD.

1.) /b “Script name”
b stands for batch process and this allows you to have AutoCAD run a script when it opens.

2.) /t “Template name”
This allows you to have AutoCAD use a certain DWT file to start the default Drawing when AutoCAD is launched by default

AutoCAD uses ACAD.DWT .DWT is assumed.

3.) /c “Configuration Folder”
c will farce AutoCAD to look at an alternative folder to find the ACAD.CFG file to look for a different hardware

configuration file. However if c is not set then it will use ACADWCFGW or ACADCFG environment variables for the path.

4.) /v “View Name”
v forces AutoCAD to recall a Named View when launched

5.) /id “ARX or DBF application”
id farces AutoCAD to load a specified ARX or DBF when launched

6.) /s “Support Folders”
s Allows AutoCAD to search additional support folder search paths rather than just the defaults in the Options Dialog. You can have up to 15 new paths delimited by ;.

7.) /r “Default System Pointing Device”
r restores the default pointing device and creates a new acad2010.cfg file and names the current acad2010.cfg file to acad.bak.

8.) /nologo
Starts AutoCAD without display the AutoCAD logo screen or splash screen.

9.) /p “Profile Name”
p allows AutoCAD to load a profile listed in the Options Dialog Profile tab. However this will load a Profile other than the

default. You may also use a path and load an external .arg file.

10.) /nohardware
nohardware disables hardware acceleration on startup.

11.) /nossm
nossm suppresses the Sheet Set Manager window on startup
.
12.) /set “path\”
set loads a named Sheet Set on start up.

13.) /w “default workspace”
w loads the Workspace specified on start up.

14.) /pl “path\.DSD
pl publishes a drawing set on .start up