Can AutoCAD 2015 and Civil 3D 2015 run side by side?

[dougpotter7]

Can AutoCAD 2015 and Civil 3D 2015 run side by side on a windows 8.1 stand alone machine? I have one class that uses regular autoCAD and one that uses Civil 3D - I have had trouble uninstalling AutoCAD in order to install Civil 3D and had to go back to an earlier restore point.  Can they be run on the same machine under the same or different users or am I just going to have to figure out a way to cleanly uninstall AutoCAD? They are both Student editions if that matters...  Thanks, Doug

[JDMather]

Civil 3D runs on top of AutoCAD, so you don't need both installed.

Simply choose to run as C3D or as vanilla AutoCAD as needed.

[dougpotter7]

Sort of what I thought... but, does vanilla AutoCAD need to be completely
removed from the system before attempting an installation of Civil 3D? I
tried installing Civil 3D on top of AutoCAD (i.e. have vanilla AutoCAD 2015
installed, updated and running just fine and then tried to install Civil 3D
2015) and ran into a bunch of install errors - 'there is a newer version of
this already installed' type of stuff and so I tried to uninstall AutoCAD
and was unable to - 1606 errors, so many registry entries that I was forced
to go back to a restore point.

[JDMather]

I always create a Windows Restore Point before and after installing any software.

If you have one before any attempt to install either softwares - I would go back to that.

Search for the Autodesk Clean Uninstall instructions if you still have trouble and then run a registry cleaner like CCleaner.

Make sure anti-virus and UAC are disabled during install.

Good luck!

There is no reason you cannot install both AutoCAD and C3D on the same machine, it just isn't necessary unless you are working with network licenses and have a limited number of each avialable. I can tell you that we have both installed.

In my experience if everything isn't done correctly from the start - it is much more difficult to fix later.