How do I open drawing with ACA 2013

[ktttallen]

When opening a drawing outside of autocad it defaults to try an open with ACA 2011. How do I change it to open with ACA 2013 by default? all my drawing are now 2013 so do i have to uninstall all other versions??

[jcp]

You can try to force windows (xp) to recognize the correct version by right clicking on the file outside of Autocad and selecting the Open With option.  Select Choose Program... to open the Open With dialog and select the 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file' check box. Then select the browse... button and navigate to the the program file for ACA 2013 and select the acad.exe file.  This is usually successful but some times on machines that have a lot of software changes you need to but the bullet and clean house.

Good Luck

[ktttallen]

I tried that before posting here. I'm using windows 7 64 bit.

Thanks

[bryce.thelin]

The DWG file type is supposed to be associated with "AutoCAD DWG Launcher," which is the AcLauncher.exe program file located here:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\AcShellEx

What this does it keep track of the last-used AutoCAD program and use that to open a DWG file when you double-click it. You should be able to start up ACA 2013 and then it will be the default AutoCAD program. If you then start ACA 2011, it will then become the default. Start ACA 2013 again to switch it back.

Since you are on Windows 7, try setting your various acad.exe files to run as administrator (right-click > Properties > Compatibility). You can try setting AcLauncher.exe to run as administrator too. I would also try turning off User Account Control to see if that helps. Type UAC in the search field of the Start menu and set it to "Never notify" and then reboot. 

[ktttallen]

tried all your suggestions nothing worked. so I tried renaming 2011 exe to old cad. I created a new dwg “in 2013” saved it and tried opening by double click. what happened? of coarse it just chose the next oldest version 2012. so I renamed 2012 exe to old and it finally uses my latest version now no matter were I open a dwg from it opens with the latest version.

.

Is it AutoCAD or windows 7? I don’t know and This is not a big deal but rather just one more  incontinence to overcome.

[bryce.thelin]

It seems like either AcLauncher.exe isn't working right or the data in the registry for the DWG file type cannot update properly. I'm leaning toward the former, which would probably require a complete uninstall and reinstall of all Autodesk software.

Before doing this, try setting the DWG file type to open with Notepad (i.e., C:\Windows\notepad.exe). Rename your 2011 and 2012 acad.exe's back to "acad.exe." See if getting the system to use a program that is completely outside of Autodesk will make it work. Once you've double-clicked one DWG file into Notepad, then switch the file type association back to AutoCAD DWG Launcher.

[bryce.thelin]

Hi ktttallen,

I wanted to check back with you on this discussion thread. Did you have any luck getting the AcLauncher to work right with DWG files?

[ktttallen]

Unfortunately it did not work. I tried it twice step by step with out success, unless I disable my other auto cad programs it reverts back to open with the earliest release 2011, when I rename that it goes to 2012 and so on.

Its not really a big deal except when I have to open a dwg attached to emails I have to save it, then open aca 2013 first.

Seems pretty logical from a PC point of view because all the autocad programs have the same extension "acad.exe" whether it 2011 or 2013 it just picks the first on it finds.

Thanks

Todd

I also did a complete "clean re install" on ACA2013

[bryce.thelin]

Here's a utility that let's you edit file type associations on Windows 7:

http://www.creativelement.com/powertools/#download

When you run this, it brings up a list of items. Put a check on "Edit file type associations" and then click Accept and then Close. Next, right-click a DWG file (or any file) and you will now see the option "Edit file types." Here is what mine looks like for DWG files:

http://screencast.com/t/eiLIsA2jGHKS

The "Choose the application to carry out this action" is set to the path to the AcLauncher.exe. Let me know if your settings are different.

[acwtzwegers]

Sorry to bring up this thread again, but I have a machine with the same issue.

Even when using open in 2013, it will launch 2012 and show the drawing in there.

I'm quite blanked at what can cause the issue, since we have quite a few identical Windows 7 64 bit machines that all had 2012 installed and now 2013 - and on just 1 we have this happening.

I guess that the easiest way would be to de-install 2012 (which is the plan anyway), but it would seem that this is the result of a bug of sorts... so I would like to know if there's an actual solution.

[KungFuDrafter]

Bryce:

It looks like Creative Element is out of business or their site is down. Do you know of another program for this purpose?

- KFD -

[bryce.thelin]

I did not know of any other utilities for editing file types, so I googled and found this:

http://izt.name/apps/types

I've not tried it but it looks like it should do the job.