Update Strategy for AutoCAD products

[Anonymous]

All:

I first posted this to the AutoCAD Electrical (Acad-e) forum back on Jan 8 and, curiously, I received no reponse, so I'll try here.

I am a relative newcomer to the AutoCAD World. I have 2 questions:

1) Do Acad-e updates also include the updates to plain AutoCAD? Or do you have to apply both Electrical & plain AutoCAD updates?

2) Does anybody have any rules of thumb for when to apply updates and/or major releases? Some companies for other software say not to apply updates until update (service pack) 3 or 4, on the basis that the early ones are always buggy. Some always update every time an update comes along.

Any thought on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott

[AllenJessup]

I don't know about AutoCAD Electrical specifically but judging from the other verticals the AutoCAD updates should be included. This can sometimes be inconvenient because it you're waiting for a fix for a basic AutoCAD problem you can't install that update. You have to wait for the vertical to have an SP.
I usually don't deploy a new release until the fist update is release. That vary on my time constraints and the reaction to a certain release on the newsgroups.
Allen

[sonny3g]

Scott, it has been my experience that Autodesk upgrades are based on the upgrades to AutoCAD and will sometimes include their add on programs like Electrical. Don't know how much they plan on doing to upgrade electrical now that they discharged the inventor, Nate Holt.

[cprettyman]

1) as with others who have answered, my experience is with a different vertical (ACAD-A), but in general, you want to apply the update for eth vertical. The content for base ACAD will be included.

2) I generally install new versions after the first major service pack - the base release for each year tends to be buggy, and with the annual release cycle, there are a lot of years where one service pack is all you get before the development efforts shift to the next release. After SR1, the best you get is usually hot fixes. I do find that Autodesk service packs solve mre problems than they create, so it's almost always worth applying them.

[Anonymous]

Newcomer here as well.  Does it make sense / is it possible to remove older versions of ACAD A or 3D Max after upgrade ?  I have a lackluster laptop and Hard Drive space is extremely low.  Can I remove Max 2010 without 2011 implications ?

Any insight is appreciated. 

[TravisNave]

Autodesk does a good job of keeping its product releases separate.  You not need previous versions after the upgrade, so you can safely uninstall them.