Buy ACAD 2006 now or wait till next release ?

I just did a quick scan of the subject headings in this NG to see how
many bug issues people were talking about and there didn't seem to be
that many.

Would it be reasonable then, to conclude that this is as good a time as
any to upgrade to 2006 ?

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. Now that they're on an annual release program, 2007
will probably be out in less than 6 months.
___

 

Our Design Office is being forced to upgrade to AutoCAD 2006, mainly because
of drawing compatibility issues.

We certainly don't need AutoCAD 2006 for our electrical design work; earlier
AutoCAD releases are more than adequate.

It also seems that AutoDesk are running out of good ideas for so-called
'programme enhancements' to appeal to the 'must have' Brigade. IMHO, some
of the 'bells and whistles' features of AutoCAD 2006 are little more than
irritants that need turning off!

I now have the unwelcome task of trying to get all our customisation files
and lisp routines running on 2006. The new .cui menu files don't seem very
cooperative, although I still have some patches/bug fixes to apply. I could
have done the traditional custom menu file 'cut & paste' in a fraction of
the time.

Last week Service Pack 1, CUI Update and a security patch were applied one
of our AutoCAD 2006 seats. After installation, it was necessary to
reactivate 2006, but the programme locked into the Product Activation
dialogue box loop fault (Activation error on computers with Serial ATA hard
disc controllers).

It would probably be prudent to at least wait for AutoCAD 2006 SP2.

 

I like that moniker. I wonder how mnay of the senior officers in the brigade
are old guys who have never used a computer, but have generally good
business "chops" and are taking the advice of their "computer guys" (who
have no business sense at all)

At the risk of sounding like an neandralthal who still shaves with a flint,
90% of the features developed in the last DECADE seem to me to be in this
category. Excluding bug fixes, and cosmetics, there's only a
release-or-two's-worth since r14.

 

Why?

Take a look at dwggateway.com ... using it I can open drawings from *any*
AutoCAD release with good ol' R14. And it's free.
___

 

Paul Turvill asked:

Not my call, just my problem!

Those above (in search of kudos) took the decision.

Must admit, if I'm starting a new drawing, I still prefer to use my heavily
customised AutoCAD 14.

I've had a look at DWGgateway and it seems very useful. However, I can't
find the advertised link to the Release Notes.

Do I need administrative rights to install DWGgateway (those above have also
removed everyone's Admin rights)?


BTW Paul - any thoughts on my earlier post 'Lisp Unexpected Exception Error'
(in AutoCAD 14)? The error has occurred several times now and I can't find
any mention of this particular error message in the AutoCAD Help files. I
can live with it, but am keen to know whether the problem is likely to be my
Lisp code. The error seems completely random and I cannot produce it at
will.

 

I don't know (as a sole proprietor, I have full Admin rights). But since
it's a free download, why don't you simply try it and see?

Sorry, I have no clue re your LISP error.
___

 

Yes, it installs OK without Admin Rights.

It wouldn't install on one of our other machines still running Windows NT,
because the Windows Installer needed to be a newer version. However, a bit
of careful file copying from my XP machine with the installed version solved
the problem.

I pasted the DWGGateway menu commands into my own customised AutoCAD 14 menu
and turned off their own menu and toolbar. Then I discovered that the
DGArx14.arx file always reloads DWGGateway's own menus whenever the routine
is run, so I had to disable that.

The fact that DWGGateway can open any AutoCAD version drawing into AutoCAD
14 and then save that drawing as any AutoCAD version is very useful.

If I was cynical, I might think that these 'open' and 'save' features could
easily have been offered by AutoCAD, but were deliberately withheld in order
to encourage/compel users to upgrade ;-)

 

See:
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2005/07/standalone_batc.html

 

What about round tripping?
If you open a r2004 drawing created with r2006, that includes dynamic
blocks, tables with fields with formulas, etc., and you work on it, and
return it to the person with r2006, do those new objects retain their
functionality? How do those objects behave to you on R14? What if you
need to edit a dynamic block? What if you need to edit a table?

I would try it myself, but I don't have access to R14.
Thanks.

 

If you use any custom scripts you may want to think twice...we have around
15 AutoCAD LT users where i work ranging from 2000 to 2005 and works fine on
all those versions. But when I tested out the scripts on a trial version of
LT 2006...no go! The worst part is that most of the workarounds I had to do
to get it to work in 2006 meant it was no longer compatible in the previous
versions....sigh.