AutoCad 2005 help?

[Grip]

Has been running fine for over a month or two, then suddenly every time I start the program I get a small dialogue box with the following message...

http://forums.farkin.net/photo/data/507/medium/ScreenShot006.jpg


Have reinstalled the whole program 2-3 times... nothing has changed (in my computer) as far as I know and yet it keeps on happening and it is now impossible to even open AutoCad, because if I close the dialogue box OR click "ok" the program shuts down and opens an auto fault reporting screen.

It seems to me that some folders/files need to have "read only" switched off, but which ones and how? (removing "read only" via folder options just doesn't work! Every time I go back to that folder it is "read only" again)

Any help from people with actual experience and/or knowledge of this would be greatly appreciated.

[rad rob]

i don't know if this is the actual problem or not, but check your firewall to see if you are blocking a program called adskcleanup or something to that extent (or maybe just try disabling your firewall and then starting autocad).

everytime autocad 2005 starts on my computer, it runs this program from within the temporary directory on the computer.

if you haven't messed around with the settings in autocad, the temporary directory used for all thing should default to your profile directory in windows then Local Settings -> Temp. So you can check the permissons on that, however I imagine if that was set to read-only, more programs then just Autocad would be broken.

[Binaural]

Sounds like your login account might be missing a few privileges. Are you sure you are installing as an administrator? This would account for the failure to change the read-only type to read-write (I had similar problems using a "power user" account with different software).

[Grip]

Thanks for that, Rob, but disabling firewall made no difference. I also went Windows>Temp but can NOT change the permission to disable read only... in ANYTHING it seems. Any other suggestions?

[tu plang]

Ditch the PC :P


**runs**

[rad rob]

Something you could try doing is creating a whole new temporary directory

go into windows explorer and enter %TMP% in the address bar.

then go up one folder level

Rename Temp to tempold and then create a new folder called Temp

I can't think of any reason why your temporary directory would be stuck on read only though, except for possible spyware/virus/type problem.

[Grip]

Binaural and Rob, thanks for all your suggestions, but still no go. I simply can't get a Temp folder to be read/write at all. I found this info on the Autodesk site if you're interested


http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=2886797&linkID=2475323

Makes it all sound pretty straight forward but like I said... I just can't get it to be read/write.

[Grip]

Guys, it seems my "Computer Administrator" user account has disappeared. I am left with a "limited account" and therefore can't do much AT ALL!!!!!

Any help in getting an Administrator account back?

[Binaural]

Guys, it seems my "Computer Administrator" user account has disappeared. I am left with a "limited account" and therefore can't do much AT ALL!!!!!

Any help in getting an Administrator account back?

Ahhhh, I thought so. I recognized the symptoms - an IT wonk once changed my privileges without telling me, and let me get to Ireland before I found out. This is not by any chance a work PC?

If it's your home PC, try logging into it locally (not on any domains that have been set up) as username "Adminstrator" (this is a built-in account) and any passwords you think might have been used to set the PC up. If you can do that, you are home and hosed, and in XP you can just go to the users and groups control panel and make your regular account an administrator as well.

Basically, to fix your problem you need either a/the administrator password or else your sysadmin to do the install for you. Good luck!

PS Failing even that, PM Cave dweller - he used to be an ACAD drafting po'fessional and may have a kludge to help you out.

[and1]

Have you tried booting up in windows safe mode and then changing file and folder permissions of said folders that way? Otherwise uninstall AutoCAD and then remove every trace of the application by deleting all files in the windows registry and then reinstalling. Either of those two options should fix it no worries, ive had it happen to me and both solutions have worked.

[rad rob]

there are a few things you can try to get the administrator password back,

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

outlines a few

i've used http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ a fair while back with some good luck.

none of them are 100% certain but and it'd be very wise to backup first, etc etc.

[Grip]

Guys, you just got to love this Farkin, eh? Thanks so much for all the help. It is a home computer... I did get back in via SAFE mode... and reestablished the Administrator user account. Still haven't got the whole Acad issue sorted yet but I think and1 is right... I'll delete everything yet again and start afresh.

As an aside... AutoDesk recommend creating a new Temp folder in the C: root directory for Autocad to use. I can create it OK but I still seem to be having trouble making it read/write... it just defaults to read only all the time.

BTW I've done a full scan with NOd32 adaware and spybot... nothing other than the run of the mill tracking cookies etc.

Once again thanks for your efforts, you got me going again.

Cheers

[and1]

Get microsoft antispyware (yes you may be thinking microsoft and antispyware in the same sentence... wtf?), it seems to grab a lot of things that adaware and others don't because of the constant live updates from its inbuilt spynet.