Advances made in migrating Autocad2000 to run on Win7 64 bit machine.

[megabrain500]

If anyone is still interested in migrating acad2000 to a 64 bit PC - I've had some success but not 100% there yet,   the main problem is just the install.exe which was written in old 16 bit lingo, everything else appears as 32 bit.  IN order to overcome this I first moved the whole acad2000 folder from program files and placed it into program files (x86) folder on my win 7 (64 bit) machine. When tried to run. It coughed up a ton of 'dll' missing type errors which I solved by taking the 'acad' folder from the original installation disk and moved it's contents to  the c:/windows/system  folder. The software now runs and loads correctly,  and loads .DWG files no problem - That's as far as I have got so far.   If anyone can help progress this further by using a slave machine and share results I'd be grateful,  I don't have win 10 so can't check it out there.  I'm sure there will be more to do to get this perfect.

[paullimapa]

I'll be more curious to know how many on this forum still use AutoCAD 2000

[TheCADnoob]

While I find the Idea of getting old systems and programs to work awesome, I have long lost the appetite for that in a production-paced world. It's easier to take on a new car note than go through the effort of overhauling the engine again haha. 

Have you ever checked out the things RetroCAD has done? They may have insights into what you are doing as well. You could probably send them a message on X (twitter). twitter.com/retro_cad https://www.youtube.com/@RetroCAD

I love checking out thier stuff

[megabrain500]

At 75 years old, buying a new cad is a no-no, I looked up on line to see
if there was an easy solution but then I had a go at migrating it
myself,  not interested in spending any more (just spent $900 on a 64
bit pc) as it's just a hobby, if I can get it fully operational I'll by
a printer or cnc mc to play with. Thanks for your reply, If you know of
a good free cad I might try one or two of those.  Thanks again though!

[paullimapa]

Here’s an article on free AutoCAD alternatives 

https://rigorousthemes.com/blog/best-free-autocad-alternative/

But none of them will look or behave 100% like AutoCAD so there is a learning curve. Other paid though less costly alternatives like various versions of Intellicad will have matching look and feel to AutoCAD. 

[TheCADnoob]

Have you looked into fusion 360? They offer a free limited version for hobbyist. 

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/personal

"FREE, LIMITED FUNCTIONALITY FOR HOBBYIST USERS
Autodesk Fusion 360 for personal use
Fusion 360 for personal use is a limited, free version that includes basic functionality for qualifying users who generate less than $1,000 USD in annual revenue and use for home-based, non-commercial projects only."

Fusion is more like Inventor than AutoCAD but it can do some pretty awesome stuff. 

[Simon_Weel]

Run it in a Virtual Machine?

[tramber]

I still got a machine and a dongle 😃

It's been a decade since I started it but I still can do it at my place.

But what about the dongle ? It needs an old serial plug.... or maybe a "rainbow" software..... i forgot

[megabrain500]

I tried a virtual machine, yes it ran autocad but I could not find any successful route to pass files between VM and Real. I tried around 6-7 online suggested solutions but none of them yielded fruit.  That was when I started a manual migration.  I am pleased people are offering suggestions and thankful  as well!  cheers.

[richard_387 · Accepted solution]

Use shared networking, and a network share to pass information between the "Real" Windows PC and the "Virtual" Windows PC.

I run Windows XP and Windows 95 on a Windows 10 machine .

[megabrain500]

OK - I I have it basically working but will switch to another cad package  thanks to all those who read or replied.