AutoCad LT2013 will not work now that Windows 8.1 has been installed

[marklead1]

I took the Windows 8.1 upgrade over Christmas, and now AutoCad LT 2013 crashes just as the window starts to open up. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling, and have applied SP1.1 and SP2. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[braudpat]

Hello from France

Welcome to the Autodesk/AutoCAD Forums !

As far as I know unfortunately , Windows 8.1 is not supported by ANY AutoCAD software (2013 or 2014)

There are some problems mainly related to the Dotnet ...

Waiting for other suggestions ...

Happy New Year, Bye, Pat

[pendean]

Roll back to Win8 or Win7, both are supported.

[marklead1]

I understand you can't roll back from 8.1 to windows 8. I was hoping Autodesk would come up with a fix for this but there doesnt appear to be anything happening. 😞

[jessica.t]

Hello Mark,

Autodesk is working on a patch/hotfix in order for our products to be compatible with Windows 8.1. To stay current, please bookmark our AutoCAD LT system requirements page and our Up and Ready Installation blog.

And thanks for jumping in, Pat and Dean!

If you have any other questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out. We appreciate your patience.

Thank you!

[marklead1]

Thanks Jessica,

As you will appreciate, I am a consultant civil engineer, and need this hotfix quickly. With AutoCad down, I cannot produce client drawings, and it is a poor excuse to say to them that my AutoCad is broken. I am sure other customers are losing custom from this problem. Can you give me an eta for this hotfix please.

Regards

Mark

[pendean]

they don't pre-announce releases or patches: reformat your HD, reinstall Win8 and all your software. Could be tomorrow, could be next month.

Backup all your files first.

[nestly2]

A quick internet search seems to indicate Win8 can be restored depending on whether you have recovery media.  Do you know if you have a recovery media, or a recovery partition on your hard drive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOdPmZE6TYQ

[marklead1]

Thanks Dean

I know that the worst case is to format and reinstall Windows 8 and all the other software. I have installed AutoCad on a windows 7 home machine to keep me going. The hot fix would be better, and less pain from my point of view. Thanks for your help.

[dgorsman]

Operating system upgrades are never something to be taken lightly.  If a program like AutoCAD doesn't explicitly state that it supports a certain OS (thats due dilligence on the part of the consumer), then there is a very good chance that it won't work properly if not fail outright.  If there isn't a mission-critical need to change the OS, why do so?

[pendean]

Wanting new and shiny is hard to resist: wishful thinking accounts for a lot of bad decisions by otherwise sane and normal people.
The OP will never make that silly mistake ever again 🙂

[nestly2]

I think Microsoft threw a curve ball on this one and bears more than a little bit of the blame for those having trouble.  Win8 to Win8.1 does not appear to be a major OS upgrade. WinXP had some pretty significant updates over the 8 years between WinXP and WinXP SP3, and to the best of my knowledge none of them broke existing installations of AutoCAD, nor did Win7 to Win7 SP1.  I also recall AutoCAD running just fine after "upgrading" from Win95 to Win98. Yeah, "things" have changed, but if anyone should have been aware of the potential problems upgrading from 8 to 8.1, it would have been MS and they should have given proper notice.  I applied 8.1 to my Dad's computer not 2 weeks ago, and there was absolutely nothing from MS to indicate it may not be compatible with existing installed software.

[Charles_Shade]

Why would MS tell a potential customer that the new OS you are about to install might hose things up?

Do they even begin to test the 10's of thousands of potential programs and setups against the new OS?

Caveat emptor to all.

[nestly2]

<cough>  Microsoft Windows Compatibility Center   <cough

Maybe MS shouldn't be listing products as "Compatible" if they haven't been tested...

[Charles_Shade]

Certainly agree with that.

Kind of random on the LT side though: LT 2013

[pendean]

"Compatible" is such a lame marketing term that can mean anything and often presumes to promise a lot: TESTED or VERIFIED is what I look for if it involved mission-critical tools for me. I let others be patsies 🙂

[ScottHodges]

But unfortunately, many IT departments, push these updates automatically, same as MS. The end user quite often has no control over operating system updates, but is expected to fix them, especially when the software vendor has no fix for the IT department to apply. I do not envy someone who can not work because their computer software does not work. Bosses want output, not excuses