I have a nice new windows 7 PC Home edition. Seems the only recourse to run Asketch on this is to upgrade to a higher windows 7 OS and then use the XP plugin downloadable from MIcrosoft which provides backward compatibility.
May 1, 2012
Regarding a way to run Autosketch 2.1 on a PC with Windows 7 … I have found at least one way that works and have theorized about another. Knowing that Windows XP (32bit) will run Autosketch I theorized that there were two possible ways of running Autosketch on my modern PC with Winders 7 namely: (1) Setup the PC to be a “dual boot” PC able to either boot to Winders 7 or Win XP (32bit) which I know from experience has no problems running Autosketch and (2) Installing a “Virtual Machine” program in Winders 7 that would emulate a second PC with an operating system compatible with sketch, in other words, the program would create a virtual PC that could have an operating system like Windows 98 (a great operating system) or Windows XP.
My computer guru told me about this concept so I tried it starting with VMware’s Virtual Machine evaluation version and it worked beeeuteifullly!!! Trouble is VMware wants about $200 for their program so I decided to try Microsoft’s (aka Microshaft’s) Virtual Machine add-on for Winders 7 (32 or 64 bit) which was free, which is a good price, don’t you know. The result was Autosketch 2.1 worked decently (albeit with a somewhat small screen) with Win XP on the Virtual PC!!!!
With my PC there is one somewhat major limitation with my Win XP Virtual PC within winders 7 which is that I can’t easily transport any output file from any program in the virtual PC to Winders 7 or for that matter any other IBM compatible PC except to put them on the internet for pickup. You see Mikrosoft’s virtual PC has no USB connection, no LAN connection (Ethernet that is), it will not allow copy and pastes to the Win 7 PC, the virtual hard drive for the virtual PC is not accessible to the Win 7 PC and my one and only “floppy” drive … a R/W CD/DVD drive isn’t working well with the virtual PC. I hope to figure out how to get the CD/DVD drive working properly soon or better yet get USB working with the Virtual PC.
As for the dual boot thing, lots of “experts” on the web say this can be done but my guru says that this concept can be a headache especially if a 64bit operating system combined with a 32bit operating system is involved.
Hope this gives you some ideas
Stan-Mayer
P.S.. There is one caveat with the dual PC system and that is the operating system for the virtual PC (the guest system) must be capable of being legally licensed to the physical PC. We certainly wouldn’t want to cheat the highly ethical Microsoft company, who’s struggling to keep from going broke, out of another $100, would we! 😉
P.S.S. I absolutely love Autosketch 2.1, a program that ranks well with AutoCad for the casual user having the capablility of drawing electrical/electronic schematics, mechanical drawings in isometric or orthographic modes, lanscaping plans, home construction, etc., etc., etc. And the "interface" is consistent from feature to feature and the program only very rarely locks up
Like so many out there, I am proficient with 2.1 and don't have the time to learn the newer versions. I have AutoSketch 6.0 and it is too complicated and time consuming to learn. Sorry, 2.1 spoiled me. My old XP desktop died and I'm also stuck in th Windows 7 issue with my new system. I have an old XP laptop and was tryng to load the 2.1 discs, but ran into a probem with #3. It gives me this message: ~TMP0D05.EXE has encountered a problem and needs to close. Anyone have any idea what that means? Also, anyone out there willing to loan me their discs so I can load them on my laptop? I've got a lot of drawings that need to be saved!!! HELP!!
Autosketch is still one of the best 2D mechanical drawing programs around. Specifically version 2.1 is so user friendly and works so well that later versions simply does not stack up.
I battled with getting later versions to work as smoothly and quick when making drawings. The cursors, quick way to set grids etc is just the best in 2.1
Then Windoze 7 came along.
Dont fear. When you install you HAVE to run the Setup.exe as Administrator. This helps in getting release 2.1 and release 9 to install. 64-bit Windoze 7 is problematic for release 2.1 but release 9 works just fine on 64 bit windoze as long as you install as administrator
I tried installing AS 2.1 on my Windows 7 Machine (64 bit) using this technique but, it would not install?? Can you offer any suggestions?
many thanks,
Jeff Menard