Thinking about using Autocad?

It blows my mind that I haven't found any type of anti-Autodesk
organization online. If I could find one, I'd join it. Dealing with
Autodesk products has brought about the most grief I've ever
experienced at a job. Their products seemed to work fine, before
Autodesk started inventing new ways to make money. Release 14 was
great. Even 2000i worked really well. Now, they're releasing the new
products every year, and changing everything. "Streamline your business
with the new Autocad! New Features, New Menus, Better Functionality,"
MY ASS.

The 2006 product has never worked on any machine we put it on. A fresh
install on some machines takes almost 4 hours, and when it finally
finishes, it doesn't work. Straight out of the box, and we get "unknown
command" errors for almost everything. Menu items don't show up or
don't do anything. What happened to making a good product?

Don't even get me started on the licensing aspect. I will say that I've
requested our company's license info from Autodesk, and they refused,
saying that I had to send them a pay stub to prove that I worked here.
Their response to my frustration was something along the lines of, "Can
you imagine if somebody else got your company's licensing info?" My
response: THEY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO FREAKING USE IT.

If this were my company, I'd have tossed all interaction with Autodesk
in the toilet, and burned everything made after 2001. Autodesk is a
scam. I'm amazed that so many people allow themselves to be frauded by
this company.

 

If you don't like AutoCAD, I have only 1 word for you:

Microstation

 

that won't work. This clown obviously has no clue what he's doing so
he'll just flub up MS too. Then he'll be on the MS groups spitting his
vile at them...
Dave
DDP

 

"This clown obviously has no clue what he's doing so he'll just flub up
MS too."

I'd like to know how you deduce that "this clown" has no clue? Is there
anything in my post that implies that I'm below normal intelligence?
I'll have you know that I'm quite well versed in every aspect of
computer administration, and I've never seen anything as absurd as the
group of products released by Autodesk in the past few years. They had
it right, then they started focusing too much energy on making a new
product to sell.

"Then he'll be on the MS groups spitting his vile at them..."

Spitting vile? Sorry Mr. Dave, DDP, but I thought I was actually doing
some people a good favor. I wish someone had told me that everything
post 2000i sucks for our purposes, and that Autodesk is an
unaccountable tyrany. If you equate that to spitting vile, then I'm not
really interested to have any communication with a clown like you.

 

that's cool with me. Hopefully the rest of your life is as perfect as
you require your software to be

 

"Hopefully the rest of your life is as perfect as you require your
software to be "

Me too. Thank goodness Autodesk isn't in charge of life. We'd have to
buy subscriptions to make sure that our internal organs didn't get out
of date. Even if our old liver was working just fine for us, we'd be
forced to upgrade to the buggy, less reliable liver, or else we
wouldn't be able to digest any of the rest of the world's food.

All I want is software that works out of the box. Most companies are
able to supply that.

 

Brilliant.

 

"Hopefully the rest of your life is as perfect as you require your
software to be "

Thank goodness Autodesk isn't in charge of life. We'd have to
buy subscriptions to make sure that our internal organs didn't get out
of date. Even if our old liver was working just fine for us, we'd be
forced to upgrade to the buggy, less reliable liver, or else we
wouldn't be able to digest any of the rest of the world's food.

All I want is software that works out of the box. Most companies are
able to supply that.

 

LOL, I could probably use a liver upgrade...even an Autodesk supplied
version

My AutoCAD has worked just fine "out of the box" since R11 although my
present version (2007) is highly customized. That's a part of the beauty
of the product, you can make it be and do whatever you want given the
need and drive to do so. I have had the same dealer since '89 and they
do a great job when I need them. I've been to several Autodesk sponsored
workshops etc and their employees that I've met all seem to be totally
dedicated. I've listened to AutoCAD bashers for years and most of the
time I just keep quiet and keep to myself...You must be special

 

You could make the same argument about software in general though. If you are
still running 16-bit versions of Microsoft Office, you will not be able to
open anyone's excel files today. Professionals running Photoshop and
Illustrator have to shell out big bucks to keep current. We may lament it,
but it's really just the way things go. I share AutoCad files with everyone
in the project chain for years now, and as long as we're all within a few
versions of one another it works out OK. I'm on 2004, and am not yet having
any compatibility issues. I'll probably upgrade next year, and I'm expecting
the new version to be just as fantastic out-of-the-box as my current one was.

If you want to see an overpriced software (also used by many of the same
people who need AutoCad) look at Microsoft Project. It really does very
little, and the latest versions add almost no features to the oldest ones,
but the cost is very high, and you have to keep current or you cannot open
othes' files.

GF