System Requirements for AutoCAD 2013

AutoCAD 2013 is soon to be released and now the System Requirements have been made public.

Note that Windows Vista is not supported by Autodesk for AutoCAD 2013. Autodesk to cease support of Windows Vista even though Microsoft changed their mind Autodesk didn’t follow.

There is nothing that restricts you from running AutoCAD 2013 on Windows Vista but you're on your own. Other than that if you already run AutoCAD 2011 or AutoCAD 2012 your system will probably work the same.

As always with system requirements these are minimal requirements for AutoCAD to run. For professional usage you surely want to have much better hardware.

32-bit version

Operating System:

• Service Pack 3 (SP3) or later of the following:
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
  • Microsoft Windows XP Home
• The following operating systems:
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Hardware:

• CPU
  • Windows XP – Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon Dual Core, 1.6 GHz or Higher with SSE2 technology
  • Windows 7 - Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon Dual Core, 3.0 GHz or Higher with SSE2 technology
• Memory: 2 GB (4 GB recommended)
• Disk: Installation requires 6 GB space
• Display: 1,024 x 768 with true color (1,600 x 1,050 with true color recommended)

Misc.

• Browser: Internet Explorer 7.0 or later web browser
• File Formats: (New file format in AutoCAD 2013):
  • Save-as Support
    AutoCAD R14, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2013.
  • DXF Support
    AutoCAD R12, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2013
• API
  • LISP are compatible
  • Scripts are compatible
  • ObjectARX application will need to be recompiled

64-bit version

Operating System:

• Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later of the following:
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• The following operating systems:
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Hardware:

• CPU
  • AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology
  • AMD Opteron with SSE2 technology
  • Intel Xeon with Intel EM64T support and SSE2
  • Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology
• Memory: 2 GB (4 GB recommended)
• Disk: Installation requires 6 GB space
• Display: 1,024 x 768 with true color (1,600 x 1,050 with true color recommended)

For both 32 & 64-bit Misc.

• Browser: Internet Explorer 7.0 or later web browser
• File Formats: (New file format in AutoCAD 2013):
  • Save-as Support AutoCAD R14, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2013.
  • DXF Support AutoCAD R12, AutoCAD 2000, AutoCAD 2004, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD 2010, AutoCAD 2013
• API
  • LISP are compatible
  • Scripts are compatible
  • ObjectARX application will need to be recompiled

For both 32 & 64-bit using 3D modeling workflows:

• Memory 4 GB RAM or more
• 6 GB free hard disk available not including installation requirements
• 1,280 x 1,024 True color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater support by your graphics card, Direct3D capable workstation class graphics card.

Via Between the Lines

Server rejected for animated GIF files

Today I got this error in Windows Live Writer when I tried to publish a post that included an animated GIF file.

"Can't publish files" "The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error."

When I tried to upload the GIF directly to Picasa Web Albums using Chrome the progress just hanged like this.

Or the Server rejected error as seen in Internet Explorer.

Anyone else seen this issue? Hopefully I'm not alone and that Google fixes this bug ASAP.

UPDATE: The problem has been fixed.

Jumping Cursor and performance issues in AutoCAD

Cursor performance issues in Windows 7 when hardware acceleration is off is described in this new knowledge base document from Autodesk.

Issue
You are running AutoCAD 2010 up to AutoCAD 2013, AutoCAD LT or an AutoCAD-based vertical product in Windows 7 and are experiencing cursor performance issues or the cursor is jumping as if SNAP was enabled.

This issue only happens in Windows 7 and affects AutoCAD LT and all AutoCAD-based products where hardware acceleration has been turned off.

Solution
Enable Hardware Acceleration if possible. Use 3DCONFIG. Another method is to disable Aero effects on Windows 7. It is also recommended to in AutoCAD, turn off all Dynamic Input features, including dynamic prompts, by setting the DYNMODE system variable to 0. Full details are found here: TS14898223

AutoCAD 2012 Hotfix for Sheet Set Manager performance issue

This hotfix will help with the network utilization traffic caused when using Sheet Set Manager (SSM) files with AutoCAD 2012-based products over a SMB (Server Message Block) V2 Network configuration.  Consult the readme file for installation instructions. Be sure to install the correct update (32-bit or 64-bit) for your software. Note: You must install AutoCAD 2012 Service Pack 1 before you apply this hotfix. Downloads found in this Knowledge Base document: DL18751298.

If you use SSM consider our SSMPropEditor that even users without AutoCAD can use to update Sheet Set and Sheet Properties.

Autodesk Sync issues when installing a 2013 release product

The first Autodesk Knowledge Base document about the coming AutoCAD 2013 and Inventor 2013.

Autodesk Sync issues when installing a 2013 release product after installing a 2013 beta product

The TS18744845 document describes the solution to this problem:

The Autodesk Sync component does not upgrade properly under the following conditions:

• You installed AutoCAD Beta 2013 (or Showcase Beta 2013) and subsequently install Inventor 2013.
• You installed Inventor Beta 2013 and subsequently install AutoCAD 2013 (or Showcase 2013 )

Extract zip files in VB.NET

Here is one way to extract zip files. The example is done in VB.NET using the Shell COM.

Declarations needed:

Imports System.IO
' Add COM reference "Microsoft Shell Controls And Automation"
Imports Shell32

Code snippet:

Dim ZipFile As String = "D:\temp\files.zip"
Dim ZipDir As String = "D:\temp\files\"
Dim Shell As Shell32.IShellDispatch2
Dim ShellFolder As Shell32.Folder

If File.Exists(ZipFile) Then
    Shell = CType(CreateObject("Shell.Application"), IShellDispatch2)

    If Not Directory.Exists(ZipDir) Then Directory.CreateDirectory(ZipDir)
    ShellFolder = Shell.NameSpace(ZipDir)
    If ShellFolder IsNot Nothing Then
        ShellFolder.CopyHere(Shell.NameSpace(ZipFile).Items)
    End If
End If

One downside with this approach is that a dialog box can show up while extracting the zip file.

Other ways to Zip and Unzip in C#, VB, any .NET language is using DotNetZip (recommended) or SharpZipLib as well as SevenZipSharp for 7z (7-zip). There is also the GZipStream Class that comes with .NET Framework but only works with .gz files. System.IO.Packaging.ZipPackage is available in .NET Framework 3 and newer but is not straightforward to use and not recommended.

.NET Framework requirements and versions

Normally it is a good idea to keep older .NET Framework versions. For example if you only have .NET Framework 4 installed and a software requires .NET Framework 3.5 a dialog box as below can be seen during installation. The solution is to install the version the dialog box indicates.

For users

A dialog box showing something like this can be seen: This setup requires the .NET Framework version 3.5. Please install the .NET Framework and run this setup again. The .NET Framework can be obtained from the web. Would you like to do this now?

In the setup log found in %TEMP% this can be seen for example:
Install state for .NET Framework 1.0: not installed.
Install state for .NET Framework 1.1: not installed.
Install state for .NET Framework 2.0: installed with service pack 2.
Install state for .NET Framework 3.0: not installed.
Install state for .NET Framework 3.5: not installed.
Install state for .NET Framework 4 Client: installed with no service packs.
Install state for .NET Framework 4 Full: installed with no service packs.

To find out what Framework is installed and also if it’s working as expected use .NET Framework Setup Verification Tool.

For programmers

Using Visual Studio setup project the launch condition is set to .NET Framework 3.5 as requirement on the target machine. Checking the MSI using Orca, VSDFrameworkVersion is v3.5 and VSDAllowLaterFrameworkVersions is set to True. So even though later versions are allowed you still need the required version, in this case v3.5. Lesson learned is that you cannot specify system requirement like .NET Framework v3.5 or later.