Way to stop upgrade or present a better warning

I've logged a ticket with Autodesk and also talked with my VAR and
they say that there is not a way to stop ACAD from upgrading an older
DGN when you open/change/save it with a newer version.

Bentley V8 has an env var whereby you can tell it to open older format
files in read only - if you change them and want to save them then you
have to enter a different file name. Any way to do something like
this with ACAD?

Our VAR says that they could "write us a program" that would bring up
a form to alert the user when the new s/w opens an older file. How
hard would this be to implement?

Jack

 

What is a DGN?

 

Maybe set your old format drawings as read-only on the server. Then
when users try to save them back, they'll get an error and that will
force them 'save as' to a new filename. Of course, invent some filename
convention for the new names. Just a thought.
-- Steve