Autodesk Mechanical Desktop

[#1]

I'm sure this has been asked too many times, but I'm doing it again.  Our company is just about to upgrade from Autocad Mechanical 2011 to 2012 and we are not clear on making sure everyone gets to keep their screens looking the same.  Basically, we all want the drawing layout screens to look exactly like they do now ... same toolbars, pulldowns, locations for everything, etc. I've poked around in the Custom User Interface dialogue box and read over the help menu on it, however, it's still confusing.  Do we have to manually pick and choose every item to save and then reload them when the new version starts up?  Or can we just save all current settings to one file as a group?  If we have to do it individually, how do we know which ones to save?

Maybe we are missing something and this is easier than it seems?? 

Any insight available is apprecriated. 

[#2]

Hi, Mikes

You may try following steps:

1. Open AutoCAD Mechanical 2011
2. command workspace>>SaveAS>>Save the current workspace with any name
3. Close AutoCAD Mechanical 2011
4. Launch Windows Explorer>>Go to C:\Documents and Settings\<user login name>\application data\autodesk\autocad mechanical 2011\r18.1\enu\acadm\ and copy acadm.cuix file
5. Switch to the machine where AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 is installed
6. Close AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 if it is open.
7. Launch Windows Explorer>>Go to C:\Documents and Settings\<user login name>\application data\autodesk\autocad mechanical 2012\r18.2\enu\acadm\

(Vista and Win7:  C:\Users\<<User login name>>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Mechanical 2012\R18.2\enu\Acadm
8. Rename existing acadm.cuix file to acadm_2012.cuix
9. Paste the acadm.cuix file that was copied in step-4
10. Launch AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 and verify if all settings are migrated.

Note: New customizations wrt to AutoCAD Mechanical 2012 will not be seen once we follow above steps.

In the future, you may want to post all AutoCAD Mechanical issues here

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-Mechanical/bd-p/39

Thanks,

[#3]

Autodesk Mechanical Desktop is not Autocad Mechanical. 2 different animals altogether!

[#4]

dbounds01,

What does your response mean? 

Mike

[#5]

They are 2 different programs, autocad mechanical is AutoCAD with Mechanical symbols etc.

Mechanical Desktop is a retired 3D Parametric solids program.  Inventor took over Mechanical Desktop.

Thats all.

[#6]

OH i forgot to say since this is the Autodesk Mechanical Desktop forum and not the AutoCAD Mechanical, I thought people might get the settings mixed up. 

This is off topic but all the AutoCAD's (electrical, mechanical, P&ID.......... and the rest) are just AutoCAD with different menus and pretend parametrics.   But in the 26 years of using AutoCAD, I think Autodesk failed on this point.  Just use Inventor (which is great for the price point) if you want to do parametric 3D stuff.

But in the end it is really what the user likes and what they can do with it. (and how much money you have).