The H-Factor

Autodesk has stopped shipping DVDs for new seats and upgrades. You will no longer receive anything directly from Hydratec when you buy these, unless we need to send you a DVD of our software as part of the order. Instead, you will receive a download link.

From the Synergis Cad Blog

Recently, Autodesk announced a “greener” method to deliver software. 
Soon, electronic delivery will be the standard method by which you will
receive your upgrades to the most efficient workflows and features. 
Whether purchasing a new license or getting the newer versions through
your Autodesk Subscription Contract, your automatic delivery method will
be via Electronic License Delivery.

If you purchase new products, you have a transition period (December 3
– March 15, 2013), in which you will continue to have the choice of
ordering a serialized box offered today, or an ELD license with an
additional optional un-serialized (physical copy) media kit. After this
transition period, customers will receive a notification email from
Autodesk with the information needed to download.

If you are currently on Autodesk Subscription, Autodesk will notify you when a new release is out via a notification email.

Autodesk’s Notification Email

Whether you are a Subscription Customer or not, Autodesk will send a
notification email when you have upgrades or products available for
download.  Please keep this email for your records, it will contain:

1. Serial Number(s)
2. Links to access the Software Media
3. A consolidated license certificate as an PDF attachment

Still need physical media?

You can still receive physical media (delivered via a default method
of USB, CD or DVD), however you will need to make the request after you
receive Autodesk’s Notification Email that a new download is available. 
You can find instructions on requesting the download on How to Request Product Media on the Autodesk Subscription Center if
you are a Subscription Customer.

A customer emailed today that his Command Line was docked to the right side of the screen and he could not move it. Furthermore, it took up half the screen. The Command Line can be controlled in the menu  (CUI) file. Type in CUI and locate the Command Line as seen below. Be sure to pick your current Workspace or you won't see the changes. You could also try to swap Workspaces (ie pick a different one) and then go back to your main one using the Workspace button

A customer asked today if AutoCAD 2013 is compatible with Windows 8. Guess what – offcially, it isn't! Here is the official list of compatible OS for each AutoCAD version: Operating system compatibility for AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT

We have run AutoCAD 2013 on Win 8 and have seen one or two funky things happen that we are hoping will be cleared up in a future release. For the most part, it works, but we may not have an answer for some bugs that pop up.

The AutoCAD variable LAYOUTREGENCTL controls REGEN between, er,  Layouts. There are three settings, 0, 1 and 2. AutoCAD help explains these options the best:

Why even have a 0 (zero) option? Well, if your RAM is extremely limited, this keeps you from getting fatal errors due to the memory being overloaded. The best setting is probably 1 because 2 can really eat up the RAM fast.

Another way to set this is on the System tab of the OPTIONS dialog box:

This post was prompted by a call from a long time customer (Hi, Debbie!). I found the following on another blog and it sounded interesting enough to repeat here:

From Ellen Finkelstein's AutoCAD blog (a very excellent one, by the way)

"I want to make sure that you know about 3 really handy commands that will help you to close down a lot of open files very quickly (and safely).

Save everything

The first command is an Express tool called SAVEALL. Simply type saveall at the command line, and all your open drawings will be saved, but remain open.

Close everything

The second command is a standard AutoCAD command called CLOSEALL. Once again, simply type closeall at the command line, and all your drawings will be closed Lickety Split.

Or do both

The final command is another Express tool called QQUIT. This tool will attempt to save and close all your drawings, and then close AutoCAD down completely.

Note: If a drawing has not been saved yet, all of
these commands will prompt for a file name. If you have a blank drawing
file open that you don’t need to save – just hit ‘Cancel’, AutoCAD will still process the rest of the files."

From a customer:

"I started using the Viewbase command, which I learned from the H-Factor
blog.  I love it, it makes pump details very easy to do.  My only
question would be about certain block/details.  A lot of the time I use
Revit models from manufacturers, such as Reliable.  I will download a 3D
valve detail from them in Revit, then export it to a .dwg file.  Then I
will insert it into my detail as a block.  But when I use the Viewbase
command, those items will not show up in the parent model.  They show up
blank.  I didn’t know if you know of a work around this."

From Alan Johnston here at Hydratec:

"You can export the 3D view from Revit as
an ACIS (.SAT) format and import that into HydraCAD.  Then it comes in as
a 3dSolid and Voila…   It Works!!!!"

From AutoDesk:

"Product keys are required for installation of Autodesk products and are used to differentiate products that are both sold independently and as part of a product suite. For example, installing AutoCAD 2016 as a point product requires product key 001H1, but installing AutoCAD 2016 from the Autodesk Product Design Suite Ultimate 2016 requires product key 781H1. The same version of AutoCAD is in both software packages but the product key differentiates one package from the other."

Click here for a list of all the product keys for the last seven plus years.

How Autodesk licenses are handled when you have more than one network seat or suite has often puzzled me. Can you open both Acad and Navis at the same time? Can one user open the Acad, one the Navis and a third the Revit? The answer is no, unless you have more than one network license. When you open one product of a network copy of a suite, the entire suite is 'checked out' and no user except the one that first checked it out can use any other part of the suite.

I stumbled across the following Autodesk 'White Paper' on just how licenses are borrowed from the license pool. It has some good examples which illustrate pretty well just how it works:

Understanding Cascade Licensing for Autodesk Products

I ran into this one about two years ago and swore that I wrote a blog entry. Apparently not. I ran into it again today via a customer in the Bahamas (nice place, huh?).

This virus is not dangerous or vicious, but it is really annoying. It causes an error upon loading HydraCAD due to the ai_utils.lsp (an AutoCAD file) having been corrupted by the virus, resulting in a streamp error and the failure of any of our programs to load. Removing the virus is not hard, just follow the instruction on this page direct from Autodesk:

How to detect and remove the Acad.vlx virus