A Handy Post-Crash Macro/Script

When Autocad crashes, the most common annoyance is that the file dialogue gets turned off. The second most common annoyance post-crash is that the noun-verb option gets turned off, forcing you to choose the command before selecting the target object.

It's fairly easy to fix these annoyances but I find it handy to have a macro to do both that I stick on the custom toolbar, which executes FILEDIA = 1 and PICKFIRST = 1.

If you want to automate it even further, you can stick it in a script and have Autocad run it every time it starts. To do so, do the following:

  1. Right click on the Autocad shortcut icon and choose "Properties".
  2.  Add " /b startup" to the end of the text in the "Target" box as shown in the image below. You will also want to change the "Start in" path to the folder that contains the script file (or place your script file in the existing "Start in" location).
  3.  Create a script file startup.scr somewhere. Put in whatever commands that you want to run when Autocad starts. In this case, we'll add the following:
    • filedia
    • 1
    • pickfirst
    • 1
    •  
  4.  Wherever you have put the startup.scr, add that location to your support file and trusted file locations (in Options>Files)
  5. Quit out of Autocad to save your settings.
 That's it. From now on, every time you start up Autocad after a crash you won't even have to think about the the file dialogue box and the noun-verb options being turned off on you.

Additional notes: For a full list of Autocad startup switches, see the Autodesk command line switch reference.

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