Comments on: What is loaded at AutoCAD startup, and when?

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:18:52 +0000

Each of these files will be loaded from the first place AutoCAD finds them as it works through its search path. The search path isn’t just what is defined in the Options Files tab, it also includes the current folder (usually the start-in folder defined in the program shortcut) and the current drawing’s folder. The current folder is searched first, then the drawing folder, then the rest of the search path. I know of no way of disabling this.

By: Chris Cowgill

Chris Cowgill — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:54:47 +0000

Steve, do you know if there is any documentation that tells how to get any acaddoc.lsp file to load from a specific location. I just realized today, that if you open a drawing that has an acaddoc.lsp file in the same folder, AutoCAD will automatically load and run that version. That could create an issue if you open a drawing and am unaware that the file is located in the same directory. plus it also has a potential to create a headache when you have office wide customizations.

By: Arnar Leifsson

Arnar Leifsson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:35:12 +0000

Is it possable to startup Autocad with out opening defult drawing automatic?

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:41:14 +0000

Sorry, I have no LDD experience whatsoever. I can only suggest creating a new clean profile and switching to it, but even that advice might be dangerous. This is the sort of things that resellers are supposed to be able to help with. Failing that, how about the Autodesk discussion groups?

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:40:17 +0000

I installed Land Desktop Companion 2009 and made very few changes to my profile and when I try to run any land desktop command I get the following:

; error: no function definition: XLOAD

Command: Unknown command “LDD”. Press F1 for help.

Can you help please, I have tried everything I know, even a repair and just can’t seem to figure it out.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:21:27 +0000

thanks steve.

pls help me with another thing.

I succeeded disabling custom commands at startup using the acaddoc.lsp and (c:xxx nil). But whenever the vlx and lsp programs are loaded again during autocad session by using appload, the custom commands are working again. Can you share some syntax on how to prevent the same custom programs (vlx, fas, or lsp) from being loaded again? I plan to put it also under the acaddoc.lsp.

thanks. you’ve been very helpful and really appreciate your kindness.

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:25:58 +0000

It depends who you’re trying to protect the file from, what rights they have and so on, but you should be able to prevent deletion by others by changing the security settings on the file.

Assuming you’re using XP, right-click on the file, pick Properties and use the Security tab to set permissions in there. See Start > Help and Support > Security and Administration > Access Control for more information. The topics “To take ownership of a file or folder” and/or “Set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions” should get you started.

Note that although you can prevent somebody deleting your file, they can still change the AutoCAD search path so AutoCAD doesn’t find it.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:15:51 +0000

Thanks a lot Steve. It works.

Do you have a way of protecting the acaddoc.lsp from being deleted? The only way I know is to make it a hidden file but it can always be unhidden in the folders option. My reason is once acaddoc.lsp is deleted the custom commands will be enabled again at the startup. So I’m hoping the file can be immune from being deleted.

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:27:39 +0000

You can disable any C:XXX function by setting it to nil, e.g.

(setq C:XXX nil)

It depends where the functions are defined and where your disabling calls are placed. If you append your own stuff (including command-disabling stuff) to S::STARTUP in acaddoc.lsp, then it should come last and should therefore “win”.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:20:22 +0000

Is there a way to disable custom commands (c:xxx) written under the function S::STARTUP? Please help. Thanks.

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:36:04 +0000

Yes, as a set of AutoCAD commands (which could include LISP-defined ones), scripts pretty much have to run after everything else is in place. So I guess that makes them fit in at E 4.

By: Chris4d

Chris4d — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:17:13 +0000

Very informative, thanks… so on top of all this, when do script files specified at the command line load? At the very end? Or no?

By: Mark McDonough

Mark McDonough — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:18:44 +0000

Thanks for putting this together. Autodesk does also publish a list of the AutoCAD startup sequence. This all came to be rather important with the recent rash of “CAD viruses”, aka ALS_BURSTED.H virus or variously called Virus.ALS.Bursted, ALS/Bursted, and other variants. The virus comes as a tainted ACAD.FAS file, or an ACAD.VLX file, and on some sites discussing the “CAD virus” conjectured that ACAD.FAS and ACAD.VLX probably load up at the same sequence position as ACAD.LSP. One of our offices got infected with the virus, and the solution was to put some code in ACAD200X.LSP (which loads BEFORE acad.lsp/fas/vlx) to thwart the virus. The virus takes advantage of the automatic-loading of reserved AutoCAD file names to execute their infected version of said files. Frankly, I’m surprised there haven’t been more of these types of virus attacks, not dissimilar to MS Office macro viruses that exploit templates and other files that get auto-loaded when Office applications launch.

By: Todd Shackelford

Todd Shackelford — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:22:09 +0000

This is a great reference post.

I’m going to print it and put it in a notebook. I’m also going to make a copy and tape it on the wall near my monitor. I’ll also book mark this site incase of a fire. That reminds me, I should write something about backing up information. I’m sure I have a few versions started somewhere around here.

By: Jimmy Bergmark - JTB World

Jimmy Bergmark - JTB World — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:32:38 +0000

Great post! It would be useful to also include when ARXs and DLLs are loaded from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.2\ACAD-7001:409\Applications and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\AutoCAD\R17.2\ACAD-7001:409\Applications.