Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Reset AutoCAD/LT without losing customizations

Sometimes you just need to reset AutoCAD/LT. It happens. Problem is, you lose all those menu customizations and/or workspace you spent time creating, moving and rearranging.

It is fairly painless to back up your customizations before resetting:
  1. Windows START button, click on All Programs, then Autodesk, then AutoCAD LT 2015 (or lower), then Migrate custom settings, select Export AutoCAD LT 2015 settings.
  2. Click the EXPORT button.
  3. In the Export custom settings dialog box, select a location (like your desktop) to save the ZIP file created by the program.
  4. Now you are ready to Reset AutoCAD to Defaults: go to Windows START button>All Programs>Autodesk>AutoCAD  LT 2015>Reset Settings to Default and it will reset and restart AutoCAD LT. 
  5. Ensure the gremlins you wanted fixed are gone.
  6. Exit AutoCAD/LT, then go to START>All Programs>Autodesk>AutoCAD LT 2015>Migrate custom settings>Import AutoCAD LT 2015 settings to bring your customizations back in.
Using Windows 8? Upgrade to Win8.1 first, then grab the free Start Button add-on and get back that useful functionality.