cant set data shortcuts or working folders

[steve-dude]

my co-worker can not setup his drawing's data shortcuts.  So, we tried to set the working folder.  He has no real options for working folders.  There is only one project folder showing for him.  Please, tell me how to get all of the project folders to display in the set working folder dialogue so we can select the correct project, then select the correct data shortcuts.  He is using C3D 2012 on a windows 7 64 bit machine.  His folders have black arrows instead of plus signs.  I've attached a picture.  The Monterey Projects folder should display several hundred project sub folders and you can see we only have the one folder of 2916.

Thanks in advance.

[steve-dude]

Thanks for the views.  We really need to work on our project though and can't or don't know how to change it from 2916.

If you have C3D on windows 7, do you get to set your working folder?  Do you get choices or just the current project?  Does your screen look like my attached image?  Can the view be changed?  Any ideas?

[steve-dude]

hmmm, additional information.  on another machine, we opened another drawing file and tried to set the working path.  Same issue.  Only one working path is shown to choose from.  It is apparently the current path.  Like the other drawing, it is wrong.  It points to some other project folder.  Interestingly, we never set the working folder for that file and it just chose some random project folder to associate with.  Can we change it to the correct folder?

[Jeff_M]

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@steve-dude wrote:

If you have C3D on windows 7, do you get to set your working folder?  Do you get choices or just the current project?  Does your screen look like my attached image?  Can the view be changed?  Any ideas?

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Yes, I can set the working folder.

Yes, I can browse all folders.

Sort of, we have one working folder per year, all projects are stored within that folder

Yes. the view can be changed.

The only thing I can think of is that the user does not have the proper permissions to view other folders.

[steve-dude]

Permissions is a good idea I guess.  The windows 7 machines don't seem to allow users to do much of anything with them.  What kind of permission do you think we'd want to look at for this issue on these machines?

Your folder does look like ours.  Except that you can see all of the other years.  I suppose your current project is "2011" in the example below?  I bet you get to select data shortcut folders within the "2011" folder?

We do ours by project number and that Monterey Projects folder is full of them.  We're dissappointed that only one project shows.  More so that it is the wrong project every time.  We can't even select a parent folder as the file just reverts back to the wrong folder.  So, we have no data shortcuts to select.

This sucks as we are finding more and more drawings all point to the wrong 'projects'.  Mostly when they are little files that have nothing to do with projects, so they were never even looked at for association.  I have no idea where AutoCAD is pulling this data from and I'm certain we're not inputting it.  Now that we want to input the data, we're screwed and CAD might as well be MS paint if we have no surfaces or profiles.

[steve-dude]

so, we just now tried to use the create new folder button.  We tried to create the correct folder and it warned us that it already exists and offered to merge the data.  We don't know about that and canceled.  We decided to make a dummy folder and created '5000'.

Now, when we go to set working folder, the only folder showing is 5000.

How the heck are we supposed to use CAD like this?  The project is there!  it's waiting for us!  The surfaces and corridors and alignments are all inside that folder!  it's hard to stay calm with all our productivity teasing us through a window.  We can see the data, can't touch it.

[steve-dude]

BTW - you said your projects are under those folders?  Does that mean you can't select any of the subfolders under 2011?  I mean, is 2011 your place for project folders just like our Monterey Projects is the place for project folders?  And the actually projects are subfolders for you (which you're not showing me) but in our case the projects are all the numbered subfolders like 2615.

Also, do you have your data shortcut folder in a project folder in your year folder for each project or just one years worth of data shortcuts in there?

I spoke with the co-worker and he said a few months ago, same machine, he was able to set different working folders but that has changed.

[Jeff_M]

wOW, LOTS OF QUESTIONS, crud, capslock, and not sure if I can answer them all. If I set the 2011 folder as my current Working Folder, then in toolspace when I choose to set Data Shprtcut Folder I get this:

Which is a list of the folder found which contain a "_Shortcuts" folder.

I'm drawing a blank as to why you cannot access other folders. Sorry.

[steve-dude]

Okay, thank you for the further explanation.  Yes, it appears we are trying to do the correct thing but there is an error in some software and we don't get to see any of the folders on our drive.  Perhaps someone else has a reason for that.  Once we get to display other folders, we'll be able to select the correct project, then we can get to our shortcuts!  I hope that is soon.  More machines are acting like this now and more files are getting the wrong associations.  It just didn't matter when we didn't have any shortcuts to worry about for small projects.  It definitely matters now.

[steve-dude]

Well, I got it to work.  I mean, I can make it display all of our projects and subfolders now.  It must be a bug with the AutoCAD software.  For our Windows 7 users, to set the working folder, one must first set it to the network drive.  In our case that is the T drive in the image I posted.  After setting it to the T drive, go back and set the working folder again.  This time, we can expand to show monterey projects and then we can expand that to show all of our project numbers!

While I don't actually want to set a working folder twice, at least this two step work around allows us to select the correct folder.

Sigh, while posting my own sollutions to my questions kind of sucks, at least someone else might be helped someday.  Additionally, if any of you are getting clues from my workaround as to the actual sollution, by all means, post the sollution and I'll get the email to look back here again.  Thanks!

[Jeff_M]

Actually this does sound familiar. When I used to have my pc set to use L: as a mapped network drive (setup the mapping through Windows Explorer), I would often have to open Windows Explorer and 'open' that drive before C3D would recognize it as available. I don't recall having this issue since I changed how I map the drive....which is via a .BAT file with this line in it:

net Use L: "\\Imaging\D\Land Projects 3" /YES

The YES telling it that it is to be persistent. I only need to run this when the drive letter has been reassigned (on my laptop I also have a .BAT to change the L: to be a local drive for working at home).

[kimdegroot]

Well steve-dude, your wish has been fulfilled - I was having this same problem and your post helped me to solve it.  Thanks!!

[nonbeard13]

ok, i just found this and had the same problem

my solution was to open a drawing i know the data shortcut file path works on and BINGO!

my headache of a drawing now lets me select a data short file path. not sure why . . . .

dang Gremlins.

c13

[jonwill1965]

This is not only a major CAD screw-up but very dangerous. CAD should AUTOMATICALLY switch working folders when switching drawings, but it doesn't I have dwg's that I've been working in for years, that all of a sudden loose their working folder association. Or worse open a drawing A DAY LATER and it is still trying to associate to a previous working folder from another project that I haven't opened but several CAD sessions ago. The danger is that I will override support files from another project not realizing that the current dwg is not associating to the correct folder, but to some other project. MAJOR CAD SCREW UP THAT SHOULD HAVE BENEN FIXED YEARS AGO. A DAILY FRUSTRATION LIKE SO MANY OTHER STUPID CAD FRUSTRATIONS.

[johnwill65]

Yeah this is s real CAD beauty. I open tooolspace from a completely different project set up long ago with its own working folder etc, yet is keeps showing the data shortcuts folder for another completely unrelated project--every time I open CAD--still showing the other shortcut folder, even if I open the design files I am using to set up my three D networks. You'd think this would be easy--assign the project to the working folder, and it never looks or sees anything else, but the geniuses at CAD couldn't get this right it seems, and just shoved the software out the door so they could up their fees.

[johnwill65]

See my message below, this is beyond frustrating, and yes very dangerous, as you will override files from a completely unrelated project if you don't check toolspace. How in the world can CAD allow this to persist???? What exactly ARE you doing Autodesk--besides charging an outrageous amount of money for a marginal at best program.