Design review 2013 will not open dwg files anymore

[Anonymous]

Good morning,

2 days ago I switched to AutoCad LT from inventer (long story). It appears that design review no longer works for me as it does nothing when I try to open up DWG files. I get no error message either.

I have updated trueview, reinstalled both deisgn review and true view to no avail.

Are there any issues between LT and these applications I am not aware of?

Any help would be great

thanks in advance

[pendean]

ADR2013 does not open DWG files: it's a DWF viewer.

LT, ADR and DTV (DWG Trureview) can coexist on the same PC just fine: did you completely uninstall ADT and reinstalled the combo (ADR and DTV)? recommended.

Is LT no longer on the PC? I don't know if Inventor was an influence: what is the default DWG file application on your PC?

[Anonymous]

Previously I could open design review, select the dwg which it would them open allowing me to save a dwf file?

How can I create a dwf file from CAD if design review does not work with dwg files no longer?

[pendean]

You can PLOT or PUBLISH (or EXPORT in newer versions) to a DWF from AutoCAD, regardless of version.

AutoCAD can also be set to "auto-publish" DWF files when you exit a DWG: OPTIONS command's PLOT tab controls this setting.

[Anonymous]

I am still confused here.

I was able to open design review, select a DWG file and it would open as a dwf file before, showing me all layout pages.. I assume some sort of conversion was happening on the fly. This no longer takes place. Has something changed with 2013 or am i missing something here? I have true view installed and I am running LT.

Using the publish method does work but very slow.

[pendean]

Seems to work fine here (which is no help to you of course): I have AutoCAD 2013, LT2013, DTV2013 and ADR 2013 installed, Win7 Pro.

Time for a reinstall perhaps?

[dennis]

I have reinstalled Design Review 2013 and just reinstalled the latest DWG TrueView, however I still am getting the msg that I need the latest version of TrueView.  Any help would be appreciated.

[cadmgr]

Same here.  I tried to download Trueview 2013 to match Design Review 2013, but found no way to download Trueview 2013.

I tried to download Design Review 2014 to match Truview 2014, but found no way to download Design Review 2014.

This sounds like another example of the uber-monopolistic Autodesk thumbing its nose at customers. 

While we wait for Autodesk to respond, any help and all workarounds would be much appreciated. 

[pendean]

There is no reason or need to download "matching" sets of those two software, it is technically irrelevant.
With ADR any dwg-capable "autocad" installed on your pc will suffice.

Your basis of information about the two software is false.

You seem to have a hidden agenda after reading your other post.

[cadmgr]

Thanks for your reply, but, excuse me?!?  How anyone might infer a "hidden agenda" in any of these posts is a feat of master intelligence far beyond my humble ken. 

Perhaps one might try reviewing this thread's opening post, which defines the public - and universal - agenda of getting the software to work as expected for users who simply want to get their work done on time and, with luck and not overwhelming personal sacrifice, on budget. 

Perhaps one might consider investing hours of non-billable time troubleshooting one's way through all possibilities when realities fail to match reason and technically relevant expectations. 

Perhaps one might review more than a single "other post" by any one of the scads (or perhaps "plethora" - google it) of Autocad users whose questions remain unanswered, and whose software failure issues remain unresolved. 

"Expert Elite?"  How does a recognized expert NOT see that the issue in this thread is an honest call, and that the prompt seen by many (only a small percentage of whom take the time to register and post here) is spurious and related to a software and/or instruction problem, and not to user error or inexperience? 

Hidden agenda?  Why does that come to your mind - unless perhaps you have a hidden (or, judging by your signature links, commercial) agenda for making ad hominem attacks on forum members who are willing to testify about issues that need holistic attention? 

With hidden agendas in mind, can you please clarify your agenda for abandoning this thread three months ago instead of responding to the query made by a very active forum member with a very relevant question? 

The failure isolated in this thread may, in fact, have a very simple solution (After all, most of these things have simple solutions) - but the vendor should be taking the time to pursue it.  Your surprise message appears to show a personal agenda more intent on belittling forum members than on solving problems. 

Indeed, your recent posts evidence an elitist and, frankly, negative approach to addressing users who ask for help.  Understanding that choosing to field questions that range from delightfully challenging to dreadfully dull can take its toll on one's fortitude and sense of service, neither excuse nor right exists to impute hidden motives to community members who visit here because stuff isn't working. 

So, before you further engage in attacking users who pay thousands and tens of thousands of dollars for products whose quality control and product support, while by no means infernal, could use improvement and MORE PAID STAFF, how about measuring up to your professed status by spending a bit less time increasing your post count and a bit more time trying to answer users' questions?  And yes, this sometimes means spelling out things that were missed in the product documentation process - if your agenda here is to provide support. 

(Snarky closing epithet pre-deleted to help ease moderator workload)

[Anonymous]

I'm an application repackager and I had the very same problem when trying to distribute a repackaged version of the Design Review and the TrueView applications and a I'm guessing quite a few others do to. After a lot of searching for answers and troubleshooting with a blindfold on I stumbled upon the following solution. The only way that I was able to solve the issue was to install the bundle but I am quite sure that there is an easier way since it is probably due to a component that is not installed correctly or some registry that are erroneously set as it seems that Design Review can't find the existing TrueView installation. . 

1. Download the Design Review / TrueView bundle exe from  http://download.autodesk.com/esd/dlm/designreview/2013/enu/SetupDesignReview2013_bundle.exe 

or from http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10336080 and select the exe you want. 

2. Run the exe and let the extraction complete, if this is to be installed only on one machine just go ahead and install it right now and you should be good. 

3. If however you for some reason need the setup files they are located in %temp% and in a random named folder about 1.5gb big. These can then be moved and deployed silently by running the following command: setup.exe /q /w /i setup.ini

[rkmcswain]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was able to open design review, select a DWG file and it would open as a dwf file before, showing me all layout pages.. I assume some sort of conversion was happening on the fly. This no longer takes place. Has something changed with 2013 or am i missing something here? I have true view installed and I am running LT.

---

FYI: Design Review does not natively open DWG files. It requires that DWG Trueview be installed, which (behind the scenes) opens the DWG files, prints it to DWF and then Design Review opens the DWF.

It sounds like Design Review does not know how to find/link DWG TrueView. Which is probably due to some missing or misconfigured registry settings due to the various software UNinstalls and Installs that took place.

I would do what Mickeyn suggests and

1. Download the bundle (DWG TrueView and Design Review)

2. UNinstall the old DWG Trueview and Design Review

3. Clean up (delete) the directories for these programs

4. Clean up (delete) the registry portions up for these programs.

5. Install the bundle downloaded in step 1.

If that still doesn't work, there may be some conflict in \Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared - in which case I would Uninstall ALL Autodesk programs, repeat the clean up procedures, and then reinstall everything. No, that is not going to be fun, but unless you can pinpoint the exact problem, it will still take less time.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone confirm success using Mickeyn's fix.  I believe this is what I did on my new PC this morning.  The only other Autodesk software that was already installed was Navisworks....but it Design Review still couldn't find TruView.

[pendean]

Again, one more time:
"Design Review does not natively open DWG files. It requires that DWG Trueview be installed, which (behind the scenes) opens the DWG files, prints it to DWF and then Design Review opens the DWF."

[Winks87]

What's with the attitude pendean?  This person is trying to solve or get help with this issue - which I also have.   Design review specifically states it will open a dwg file - it is a supported format - so your statement of "dwf" only is not true.  Who pissed in your cheerios?  Autodesk pissed in mine...

[rkmcswain]

Winks87 wrote:

Design review specifically states it will open a dwg file - it is a supported format - so your statement of "dwf" only is not true.

Depending on how you define the terms "open" and "supported", those statements can be true or false.

I say they are false.

I'm guessing you have not read all the posts in this thread because post 12 clearly explains how and why DWG files might not work in Design Review.

[Winks87]

Yes, you are correct.  I guess the confusion comes in when it actually opens a dwf based on the dwg.  The issue whith not finding the true view program is because it is looking for a 2013 true view I would guess - being the design review is a 2013 program.

[m_latz]

Just for those who wnat to install TrueView 2014 or TrueView 2015 with Design Review 2013 and want open DWG's with Design Review.

To fix the problem append the following registry keys to your HKEY_CURRENT_USER tree:

If someone have to install more than one pc, send me an e-mail, then I will send you a MST file (transformation for the TrueView msi file) to make the changes automatically during the setup of TrueView 2014 or TrueView 2015.

Remember, that if an other user installs TrueView and Desing Review, after the 1st log in you have to first call TrueView and make the changes above.

This works in my cases perfect.

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

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@Winks87 wrote:

What's with the attitude pendean?  This person is trying to solve or get help with this issue - which I also have.   Design review specifically states it will open a dwg file - it is a supported format - so your statement of "dwf" only is not true.  Who pissed in your cheerios?  Autodesk pissed in mine...

---

Pendean is and A$&*%#$ who like to ridicule people for not knowing stuff. Search these forums and you will see plenty of examples. I'm not sure how he got 'Expert Elite' status as he is rarely helpful and generally abusive. It is funny that in posts where he is shown to know nothing, he stops posting!!

Back to the OP's question.

The info you are getting here is correct. Before the discontinuation of ADR, all you needed to do was install both ADR and Truview and the world was gravy (dwgs magically open in ADR and rkmcswain is on the money). As ADR has been discontinued, any subsequent installation of Truview will break the relationship between ADR and Truview...

Downloading the bundle as mickeyn suggests should fix your problem as it did mine. with Truview 2015 installed, ADR (2013) was asking me to 'install the latest version or Trueview' which I do have??!?

Scott Sheppard (of Autodesk) has suggested that ADR will be getting a spruce up (though not a new 'version') which I hope is compatible with later versions of Truview, not because I want to use the later versions, because I want to continue to use ADR with dwg...

EDIT: after reading the commetns again, I missed m.latz comment. This reg edit doesn't seem to work for me? I am using ADR 2013 and Truview 2015?

[scott-sheppard-autodesk]

The spruce up is a security fix that is nbot related to any of the security issues you have read about. It is something we want to address before it becomes an issue.

DWG TrueView views DWG files. ADR only loads DWF files natively. As y'all have mentioned in this thread, if you open a DWG with ADR instead of a DWF, ADR will invoke DWG TrueView, have it publish a DWF, and load the resulting DWF, so it seem like you are viewing the DWG. So how did our marketing department describe this convenience? As if ADR supports DWG. Bummer. ADR is using the registry to locate DWG TrueView. The new values put in the registry by DWG TrueView 2015 are not expected by the older ADR. I will pass that on to the team.