Monday, October 26, 2009

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

Friday, October 23, 2009

Autodesk now supports Windows 7

You may have seen this but if you had not, head on over to the Autodesk press release to find out more. There are seven products that support Windows 7 (seven for Windows 7, nicely done Autodesk).

However, some of main platforms do not support Windows 7 right now, including Civil 3D and the Revit products, so be sure to read the release carefully and ask for help if you need it.

Monday, October 19, 2009

I have used the Raster design License update but I still can not get a License.

The Raster Design license update corrects an issue in the 2010 release. The issue is that without the update you must have matching software install types (network or standalone). For example you have Civil 3D 2010 licensed on the local machine and Raster Design licensed from the server they will not work together without this hotfix. However if you have a standalone Civil 3D license and you have a standalone Raster Design license then you would not need the hotfix and they would work together fine.

Hotfix Link
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13435443&linkID=9240978
Document listing - DL13435443

The exact text from Autodesk is as follows
Issues Addressed by this Hotfix:
· Raster Design Network Deployment:This hotfix updates licensing files which allow AutoCAD Raster Design 2010 network deployments to be installed with supported standalone AutoCAD applications.
This hotfix will not allow a standalone Raster Design 2010 installation to install with network deployments of host applications.
· Raster Design Features with AutoCAD Civil 3D and AutoCAD Civil 2010:This hotfix also addresses instability issues with Raster Design features (i.e. Imanage) when installed with AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010.

However there has also been a new issue that is tied to this issue. The Raster Design license will still not get a license if the 2 products are not installed from the same media type. So this means if you have installed Civil 3D 2010 from a DVD and then install Raster Design from a deployment then they will not work together. You must install BOTH Civil 3D and Raster Design from a deployment OR a DVD method.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Merge the service pack into a 3ds Max 2010 deployment fails on client install, Append option works

When you attempt to “Merge” the service pack into a 3ds Max 2010 network deployment the installation to the client fails, but the “Append” option works.

This is a known issue. Currently, we can only offer the workaround of using the append option. Our engineers are looking into fixing this issue.

Autodesk Support Team