AutoCAD 2004 and XP sp2

Took the plunge over the weekend and found (like others have) there is a big
delay for plotting dialog boxes....
very long story short...AutoCAD 2004 is no longer honoring the plot file
support paths under Tools>Options>Files Tab>"Printer Support File Path">...

We have XP pro's on a peer to peer network, (2) HP 430 Designjets and (1) HP
DeskJet 1220c are connected to a plotter server (win98 box). The 2 min plus
delay completely disappeared when I placed the folder containing the pc3
files on the plot server hard drive. I have one working perfectly now and
another has errors with 8.5x11 plots (from a lisp plotting routine) because
the thing is still looking at an incorrect pc3 (from what location I have no
idea). The correct pc3 has a filtered size list for Letter and Tabloid, the
pc3 loading has an unfiltered list which includes <8.5 x 11 Letter>.

 

Just for clarification... where did you put the PC3 file?
on a network folder or did you take it from a network folder and placed it
locally on the machine, or were they originally local hardrive and moved to
a plot server?

Does your PC3 with errors have a PMP file attached?

 

We're not set up on a server/client network ... we're peer to peer .... the
pc3 files have to be located on the computer that the plotters/printers are
attached to, and shared from, to eliminate the delay. Originally the files
were located on the c drive of the machine running AutoCAD ... all our
customization from mns's to pmps are/were located in subfolders under a
single customization folder. I've since moved the pc3's and pmps to the plot
server location and changed the support paths pointing there.

Eliminated the PC3 errors by reinstalling the HP 1220c drivers on both xp
boxes ...on the first, the driver was installed as xp sp1 and the other was
installed as xp sp2 so the computers were seeing the same pc3 file but
returning different values. One saw "Letter" and "Tabloid", the other saw
"Letter (8.5 x 11 in.) " [note there is a blank space at the end..important
for your coding!] and "Tabloid (11 x 17 in.)" using the same pc3 and pmp
files. Verified this by renaming the offending pc3 and reading the
properties at both machines.

The boss is having a heart attack over the time spent on this upgrade, I'm
ready for a drink and it's only 8:30 in the AM! But we're 100% back on line
finally. I luv my job

 

I did ... completely uninstalled the printers, removed the drivers, pc3 and
pmp files and started with one plotter, one pc3 and one pmp.... with the
files in the previous location and specified in the files support path I
still got the delay ...when I moved the pc3's over to the plot server the
delay went away... every thing is back up and working at this point but
those files are now located on the plot server. Which means AutoCAD is no
longer honoring the file location path specified in the support paths.

 

Dean,

I'll be sending a more detailed accounting of events and copies of the files
involved up the line to AutoDesk this weekend ... I'll post again when I
hear back.