AutoCAD 2005 compatability issues w/ Vista

I have CAD 2005 for work and was recently given a new computer with Vista on it. Obviously I'm having issues getting the program to run with Vista, and I'm trying to figure out if there's ANY way I can use 2005. Is there a service pack or something I can download for it?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Officially, AutoCAD 2005 is not compatible with Windows Vista. Even AutoCAD 2007 required a service pack in order to run. See here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=9217791&linkID=9240617

I doubt you will get it working in a satisfactory manner, if at all. Even if you do, it's likely to be unstable. You have 2 options, go back to XP or upgrade to AutoCAD 2009.

For the record, I uninstalled CAD 2005 and reinstalled it. Before opening the program I right-clicked the icon, went to properties, set the compatibility as XP with service pack 2, and then set the program as an administrator. It works fine thus far.

I never ran 2005 on Vista but I ran 2002/2004 & 2007 fine on Vista before finally upgrading to 2008 using the method you described and never had problems.

For the record, I uninstalled CAD 2005 and reinstalled it. Before opening the program I right-clicked the icon, went to properties, set the compatibility as XP with service pack 2, and then set the program as an administrator. It works fine thus far.

Well done. Autodesk won't say that 2005 doesn't work with Vista, just that it's not supported - basically, that means you're on your own if anything goes wrong.

Good to know there's a way round the problem.

For the record, I uninstalled CAD 2005 and reinstalled it. Before opening the program I right-clicked the icon, went to properties, set the compatibility as XP with service pack 2, and then set the program as an administrator. It works fine thus far.

wow. rarely do you ever find a post that is accurate and does the trick. This worked like a charm, and saved me the cost of a new copy of AutoCAD at home.

For the record, I uninstalled CAD 2005 and reinstalled it. Before opening the program I right-clicked the icon, went to properties, set the compatibility as XP with service pack 2, and then set the program as an administrator. It works fine thus far.

WOW..

Thanks! As with the above poster, this saved us $3500. We are a small company and although we love our autocad, we just could not afford to update.

Excellent post,

You guys rock! I will be trying this trick out tonight.

For the record, I uninstalled CAD 2005 and reinstalled it. Before opening the program I right-clicked the icon, went to properties, set the compatibility as XP with service pack 2, and then set the program as an administrator. It works fine thus far.

Thanks for the post! Glad to hear '05 is working for you under the Vista OS. Great!

Luckily, you avoided the $$$ upgrade. Thumbs up!

I installed AutoCAD 2005 on Vista, using the trick previously stated here. It seemed to work fine, but I have discovered an issue I am not familiar with correcting.

When I go into my Layer Properties window, I cannot change any of the properties of any of the layers. (i.e. color, lineweight, etc.) I mean, I can select different colors or other properties, but when I click "Apply" or "OK", the changes do not take place. Everything is the same as it was before.

Pickfirst is set to 1, that's the only command I know related to this problem.

Anyone else got any ideas?