So you just received a new computer but you have AutoCAD setup just the way you like it on your existing machine and it takes "forever" to get all the settings the way you like it, right? Then this will save you time.
AutoCAD uses the Profile (and Windows Registry) to save your settings. Not all of the settings are saved, but many of them are saved. They are saved to the registry and if you want you can "Export" them and import them into another AutoCAD. The AutoCAD profile is saved into the Registry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch/hive. So in a sense an AutoCAD Profile and the Registry are one, and they are the same.
Some settings are saved in the Windows Registry and can be exported and imported on another system, other settings are saved in the Current Drawing. If there is a drawing icon, it’s saved in the drawing only, not in the registry.
Note: I have not verified that ALL settings without a drawing icon are saved to the registry, I just assume most, if not all, are saved. However, that may not be the case.
First, let's take a look at what will be saved.
1) Enter Options at the command line and hit the enter key.
2) Select the "Open and Save" tab
If there is a drawing icon next to a setting it means it is saved in the drawing only.
So, look through the different tabs and see what you get to save. I believe everything on the “Files” tab is saved in the registry which means we can export it.
3) Now go to the Profiles tab. At the top you can see which “Current profile” is in use. Select it under the “Available Profiles:” section and click “Export”.
4) Save the file somewhere that you can get to it from the other machine or to the local disk (so you can email it or put it on a thumb drive), and give it a name.
I used AutoCAD_2015.arg here so I knew it was for AutoCAD 2015.
Now, to the other machine!
5) Launch AutoCAD on the other machine
6) Go into Options
7) Click Import on the Profiles tab
8) Browse to and select the profile that was exported.
9) Give it a new profile name. I’ll use “My AutoCAD 2015”.
Note: if you rename AutoCAD2015Profile.arg to AutoCAD2015Profile.reg (a Windows Registry file) and double click it, the settings will merge into the Windows Registry and you will see them the next time you open AutoCAD.
Caution: If you import them into a different version (2013 into 2015) you may suffer some performance issues. I typically can sort these out pretty quickly by fixing the plotter section in Options>Files tab. However there are other things that can also cause performance problems within the Profile too.
10) Now click Set Current
11) Click Apply and Ok to close the dialog.
Notice that the Profile name on the Profiles tab is not the same as the file name we selected to Import!
12) Verify the settings are as you like/need them.
Done! Now you can tweak it the way you’d like and resave/export the Profile so you can easily re-load it should you need to reset your AutoCAD settings back to default or reinstall AutoCAD.
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