AutoCAD 2013 will not start.

[xxjwilson]

I click on the icon and cursor spins for about ten seconds and then stops, thats it. No splash screen and  acad.exe never even shows up in task manager. I went to the root directory thinking the shorcut is busted and same result, nothing. I tried to uninstall and windows says:...."error, the program you are trying to uninstall has already been uninstalled, would you like to remove it from the list of programs?"..... I tried to re-install from the Autodesk Design Suite usb drive with no luck. The AutoCAD program has a red "NO" circle next to it and it says AutoCAD is already installed, which is different then the other programs that are installed (Revit,Naviswrks...) these programs have a blue "installed" box and a check mark like all is well, and it is. Revit and Navisworks both start up with no problems. 

So the setup softare can see that some thing is wrong but won't allow me to re-install.

The program won't run, I can't uninstall it and I can't re-install it......right now AutoCAD is a very expensive Icon on my desktop and nothing more.

Additional info: the program worked fine for several months, I just removed Autodesk"s Beta program "Project shoreline Preview 2" (for the same reason...it wouldn't start), and I updated my graphics card driver this morning.

This was all before realizing the AutoCAD will not start.

I've since tried rolling back the graphics driver, re-installing Project Shorelins and I even attempted a system restore, which failed due to some program files missing.

[xxjwilson · Accepted solution]

Now I know why no one wanted to respond to this one.

I cant say why this happened but I did manage to fix it.

Fisrt I ran the Microsoft Installer Clean Up Utility ( attached ) which is no longer supported by MS or Autodesk so use at your own risk!! Autocad 2013 came up in the list of programs and I removed it. 

Second I used a registry cleaner tool (ccleaner) to remove any remnents of the program from the registry.

Third I deleted the Autocad 2013 file from my "program files" directory on the c drive.

Finally I was able to re-install Autocad 2013....or so I thought. Upon installation I recieved the error message 1402, which I found a solution to on the autodesk forums ( see link below) Thats where it gets really hairy....i'm not very comfortable making registry changes to a computer that doesn't belong to me, but I needed to get this problem fixed.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=16508079&linkID=9240617

I cant imagine how or why a peice of sofware that has been around for as many years as Autocad would suddenly malfunction so badly that I would have to go to the lengths I did to fix the problem, but I can only imagine that it has and will happen agin, and I know most people will not have the where with all to alleviate the problem. Big dissapointment!

[scottman1987]

Thank you for posting this - I had the same experience, and your steps fixed my problem also.

[xxjwilson]

Thanks for your reply, this problem just re-occured and I had forgotten that I documented the solution. So you basiclly emailed me with a soulution that I created. timing is everything!!

Have you any idea why this problem happened, or how to prevent it?

[elhis]

Ola