Working on a Softplan DWG in Acad 09?

I pulled a DWG file from a program called Softplan into my Acad 09 to make some changes, the original drawing has some weird layering and even worse colors that I can barely see. When I switch the existing drawings layers over to what I am used to, the layer name changes but the colors and properties stay the same. Anyone know how to get this to update without manually selecting the colors for every line I change the layers on???

I have now also noticed that if I turn off a layer from the Softplan file it remains on my view, so the layers are not updating or turning on and off.