AutoCAD 2007/2008/2009 DWG Format

[#1]

Right now our company standard has one central location for all automatic saves and it cn be quite the pain to find anything if you were to crash.  I was wondering if there was a way to set it to be project specific?  Where the automatic save would drop the save file right in the same location as your drawing.  I don't see anyother way to do it other than set it everytime you open a drawing...I wanted to get some other opinions.

[#2]

The way we handle it is to have each persons autosave is located on their personal computer.  To change the Automatic Save location go to tools/options menu.  Select the files tab and go to the Automatic Save File Location to wherever you want it to be.  This file location could be in the project folder, or your local computer.

[#3]

Nothing beats a manual save every 5 minutes or whenever it occurs to you to do so.

[#4]

We do it basically the same way, but with the following exceptions:

1) Everybody has the same directory on the root drive of their machine ( C:\acad2008_temp for example).

2) In the options menu, select the files tab and set the Automatic Save File Location to the directory.

3) Change the Automatic Save File Extension to something meaningful to you or your company, so it's easy to find. (.SV$ is what we use.)

4)Change the save time to whatever is you like. (I personally use 10 minutes).

 Save or export the profile to an ".arg" file. We use a profile switch on the command line of the Desktop icon to set everyone to the same profile.

Hope this helps.

Rocky Brown

Aluminum Ladder Co.

[#5]

Thank you...I know how autosave works and where it's saving, etc.  I was just wondering if there was a way to make it drop that save file in whatever project you were working in...instead of a temp folder along with the 8 million other things that get dropped in there.

[#6]

I believe that the only way to do what your asking is to have a profile for each project and in the temporary file path change it to the project folder. 

[#7]

FYI.......... Name the directory something like "AutoSave". It does not have to be a Temp directory.

Rocky Brown

Aluminum Ladder Co.

[#8]

You never EVER want all your files, especially a rescue file as created by Autosave, to be in the same folder (or PC) as the other files: is your company's leadership aware of your lack of disaster recovery methods?

You park that AutoSAVE far away from all your other files, all the time. First PC/Server hiccup and you will truly regret it forever.

[#9]

An answer: To help my self with saving the drawing, I have put to gether a couple of small AutoLISP programs that help me to save the drawing.

(defun c:ze ()
  (command ".zoom" "e" ".qsave")
  (princ)
)
(princ "\n  ze.lsp is loaded.  Type \"ZE\" to run.")
(princ)
(defun c:za ()
  (command ".zoom" "a" ".qsave")
  (princ)
)
(defun c:zp ()
  (command ".zoom" "e" ".qsave")
  (command ".zoom" "p")
  (princ)
)
(defun c:rs ()
  (command ".regen" ".qsave")
  (princ)
)

They are set up, so whenever I use one of them, I execute the command but I also save my drawing. Since I use "ze"

alot during the day, I save about every 5-7 minutes. And I get my saves in.

A Question for

Dean Saadallah

Where would I find suggestions for disaster Recovery as I don't think we are perpared for that either, and I don't want to lose the work I've done.

HD

[#10]

What is your setup: file server, p2p network, stand alone PCs?
What do you use for daily backup?
What do you use for weekly backup?
What do you use for offsite backup?

Do you back up the Server OS, or just project files?

Not sure there is one definitive document, your approach needs to be multi-faceted to cover recovery issues like:
I just lost a file
I just lost my computer
I just lost the server