Help(?) Needed

Bi11Hudson

Bi11Hudson

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Good morning, All;
This may not be the right place to ask, but was the closest my sleepy mind could come up with. To explain, I have been a WinDoze-XP user on the same machine for 10+ years.(closer to 15) I recently had a hard crash, and in my rush, hooked up the backup wrong. To make a long story short, I am now making the transition to WinDoze-10, on a new machine.

So far, I'm not real impressed with W-10, I'd rather stay with XP. The bottom line here is that AutoCAD won't run on anything newer than XP. I am retired(disabled) now and lack the income to replace what version I have.(2005/3D/Mapping) And lack the motivation to do much with it anyway. Especially the 3D. I had a quasi-legal copy, bought from a university bookstore many years ago. They have dropped the engineering studies they had then, but I wasn't real impressed with their corriculem even then.

Herein lie my questions:

First off, I had ACAD highly customized, particularly the menu plugins. Are there any freebies out where I can reuse those plugins? I've managed to age quite a bit these last few years, 3:1 or more. I lack the time to invest in a new learning curve. Here also I am looking for a freebie, one with a command structure at least similar to ACAD. I am essentially self taught and cannot read from a printed page now.

Now, most importantly, the advised program MUST read AutoCAD's .DWG and .DXF files. I have dozens of personal files, maybe scores, possibly even a hundred or more. Anything that requires a finite measurement was done in ACAD, has been for years. It's how I pre-figure any thing I'm building, be it machinist, electrical, electronic, cabinet work, framing carpentry, anything I do has a CAD file on it. Most of my files were saved to an earlier version, 2000 or earlier. A few, the 3D studies, are in later format. Out of necessity there.

Many of the files can be abandoned, removed from "this" hard drive. They will be maintained on older XP's drives, although I don't expect to ever need them. But I still have scores that are of current potential use.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Any of you CAD users out there have opinions? And bear in mind, when I refer to freebies, I'm looking for anything fairly inexpensive as well. AutoDesk has a version that will run on W-10. But it's a kilobuck a year, it times out in a year. I'm sure I can do better than that. Something that has a CD/DVD in my desk drawer. Something I can reload even if the NET is down.

Bill Hudson​
 
I use FreeCAD and it claims to read DWG and DXF files, but I haven't actually tried importing any of those to see how well it is supported. It is at least free and you waste little more than time if you try it out.

As for Windows problems, can't help there as I converted over to Linux back when Win3.1 was still common.
 
Windows 10 has a compatibility mode for older programs that don't like newer versions of Windows. It doesn't always work, but it might be worth a try. I just looked on my work computer and this machine at least only goes back to Vista.

You could try a virtual machine as well, but those can be tricky with 3D applications. With Windows as the main system as well, it might be possible.

You might also be able to install XP on the new computer, but that can also be difficult these days. New hardware often doesn't have drivers for older Windows versions. You could also set up a fresh XP on the old hardware. XP is out of support, so ideally, keep it off the internet.

If those don't work for you, you might give Fusion360 a try. It will read your files at least, but there will be a learning curve.
 
I also went over to the "bright" side with Linux (Peppermint) but I keep windows machines around too for mundane stuff
My newest windows machine is win7 (I installed "never 10" on it to keep out of the upgrade rat-hole) but I haven't used it for months
You can buy xp reinstall discs on ebay if you have a legal machine with the coa sticker
mark
 
Bi11Hudson said:
Good morning, All;
This may not be the right place to ask, but was the closest my sleepy mind could come up with. To explain, I have been a WinDoze-XP user on the same machine for 10+ years.(closer to 15) I recently had a hard crash, and in my rush, hooked up the backup wrong. To make a long story short, I am now making the transition to WinDoze-10, on a new machine.

So far, I'm not real impressed with W-10, I'd rather stay with XP. The bottom line here is that AutoCAD won't run on anything newer than XP. I am retired(disabled) now and lack the income to replace what version I have.(2005/3D/Mapping) And lack the motivation to do much with it anyway. Especially the 3D. I had a quasi-legal copy, bought from a university bookstore many years ago. They have dropped the engineering studies they had then, but I wasn't real impressed with their corriculem even then.

Herein lie my questions:

First off, I had ACAD highly customized, particularly the menu plugins. Are there any freebies out where I can reuse those plugins? I've managed to age quite a bit these last few years, 3:1 or more. I lack the time to invest in a new learning curve. Here also I am looking for a freebie, one with a command structure at least similar to ACAD. I am essentially self taught and cannot read from a printed page now.

Now, most importantly, the advised program MUST read AutoCAD's .DWG and .DXF files. I have dozens of personal files, maybe scores, possibly even a hundred or more. Anything that requires a finite measurement was done in ACAD, has been for years. It's how I pre-figure any thing I'm building, be it machinist, electrical, electronic, cabinet work, framing carpentry, anything I do has a CAD file on it. Most of my files were saved to an earlier version, 2000 or earlier. A few, the 3D studies, are in later format. Out of necessity there.

Many of the files can be abandoned, removed from "this" hard drive. They will be maintained on older XP's drives, although I don't expect to ever need them. But I still have scores that are of current potential use.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Any of you CAD users out there have opinions? And bear in mind, when I refer to freebies, I'm looking for anything fairly inexpensive as well. AutoDesk has a version that will run on W-10. But it's a kilobuck a year, it times out in a year. I'm sure I can do better than that. Something that has a CD/DVD in my desk drawer. Something I can reload even if the NET is down.

Bill Hudson​
Click to expand...

Dassault (SolidWorks) has an AutoCad look alike called Draftsight that is free, at least in the pared down version. I am running it on Win 7 but it will run on Win 10. https://www.3ds.com/products-services/draftsight-cad-software/free-download/
Its functions are much like AutoCad so it should be easy for you adapt. It will work with both dwg and dxf files.
 
Thanks for the input, folks;

The suggestion about:
###########################################
Windows 10 has a compatibility mode for older programs that don't like newer versions of Windows. It doesn't always work, but it might be worth a try. I just looked on my work computer and this machine at least only goes back to Vista.

You could try a virtual machine as well, but those can be tricky with 3D applications. With Windows as the main system as well, it might be possible.
###########################################
That one is known and has been tried years ago, myself included. It won't work with the version of ACAD that I have. Nor with Linux. Nor with UNIX. It's frustrating on a good day. On bad days, I played solitaire instead. But thanks for the thought.

I currently am looking into Dassault. Their drawing tools are lousy, from my perspective. I figure that as much as I have worked ACAD, it'll take a while to learn it, though. But most importantly, it did load my existing *.DWG files. That's as good a start as I could ask for.

I didn't purchase the full blown version yet. Won't until I play with it a while to see if it's as usable as AutoCAD was. But it looks usable.

Thank all of you for the pointers;
Bill Hudson​
 
Bi11Hudson said:
Their drawing tools are lousy, from my perspective. I figure that as much as I have worked ACAD, it'll take a while to learn it, though. But most importantly, it did load my existing *.DWG files. That's as good a start as I could ask for.
Click to expand...
3DS Draftsight is, for the sake of this thread discussion, best described as a clone of AutoCAD v12. It is almost identical in keyboard commands to the 2D version that I learned on in the late 90s.

You might also consider checking out this sticky which includes a list of CAD programs.
 
I couldn't pass up a good pissin' match. Had to reply to this one. I am literally "self taught" with AutoCAD. Never had any reference books, just playing with the program on the back turns at the mill. I made several changes, "designs"? to the electrical plant. Had to present something to the boss. Hand drawn would have worked, drafted got me a number of 'brownie points'. I expanded from there, never went to any classes, either. The available version was oriented toward a graphics interface, doing everything with the mouse. I only learned a (very) few commands. Faster with the mouse. Never went to high school, just studied what I needed as I needed it.
 
Lol. Well, I already made a visit to the little boys room this morning...you win!

I think you will find Draftsight to be very useful - you sound very resourceful and it is flexible for people with different needs, but the one thing it can’t do is 3D modeling.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
With windows 10, the saving grace for me is to hold the window button and hit X, brings up all my old friends like control panel, restart, search and other Difficult to find items in W10.
 
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