- Joined
- Feb 13, 2017
- Messages
- 2,138
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.
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