It'll soon be upgraded time . . .

[Paul-Mason]

. . . and we all know what that means.

The hassle of having to copy over customised settings, such as customised templates, new or customised materials, customise styles, the list can go on

So why oh why can't Autodesk just have ONE location where any and all versions can reference these customisations and then prompt the user to update the files. or is that too logical.

I know that over the last 20 years I've had to copy files left right and center and still loose some custom setting like custom material colours for custom materials and my per-set hatchings for most materials and lose other customised settings too. It time consuming and bloody annoying having to mess around like this every year. 

OR

is there an easier way especially for those of us on a stand alone machine,

It would be interesting, much appreciated by the newbies, and helpful to us plebs, if the long time seasoned users to post what there methodology is in this situation

[Frederick_Law]

I've put everything into one folder since maybe 5.3.

AutoDesk put them everywhere doesn't mean you can't redirect them somewhere else.

I've carried the same folders and files from job to job.

I start with:

C:\Job 2023

I use IV version since I'll keep and use multiple version IV.

It is also my Project workspace.

"C:\Job 2023\_IV Data" will have all "IV Data" in it.

When I use Solidworks, I add "\_SW Data".  So yes, this work with IV and SW.  Multiple versions running at the same time.

[jtylerbc]

I do something similar, except I actually have the release year as part of the folder name.  

• Design Data 2021
• Templates 2021
• etc.

The reason I do this is that my company has engineers at many branch locations across the US, in addition to our main engineering departments at the company headquarters.  Many of those engineers, at any given time, are working remotely at a jobsite at a customer's location.  So we typically end up running the old and new versions concurrently for a month or two before everyone is updated.  Once the new version has been installed for everyone, I typically delete the old version 's support folders.

[Frederick_Law]

Since I keep them and working files in different year folders, I didn't need to rename them.

Of course, I use different Project for each.

Usually one old version, one current, one new testing.

On this SW is better.

I can open 4 different year SW at the same time.

IV will went crazy with Windows Registry.