Some people have now received AutoCAD 2009, or at least downloaded it, which you can do (legally!) here, as long as you’re in the United States or Canada.
I’m closing the AutoCAD 2009 speculation poll. Other than a small blip on “Very bad”, the poll follows a typical bell curve nicely, with the peak very clearly [...]

It would appear that AutoCAD 2009 is now shipping. I intend to hold off on any further comments until I get my hands on the shipping product, which I expect to be fairly soon. In the meantime, maybe have a look over the 24 AutoCAD 2009 Prequel posts and see if there’s anything you missed.
If [...]

You may be used to accessing pull-down menus with Alt-key combinations, e.g. Alt+F to get at the File menu. You can still use those keystrokes to get at menus in AutoCAD 2009, whether or not the pull-down menus are in place. If the pull-downs are visible (MENUBAR=1), they are given priority over the Menu Browser. [...]

Like Recent Documents, the Menu Browser pane also stores a Recent Actions list.

Like Recent Documents, the length of this list defaults to 9 and can be set to up to 50 in Options.
Similarly, you can pin actions in place to prevent them slipping off the end.
Unlike the command line recall (up-arrow) method of retrieving recently [...]

One more feature that’s crammed into the Menu Browser pane’s limited space is the Open Documents list. This allows you to switch between the drawings you currently have open. It has a similar interface to the Recent Documents list, including the persistently pale preview:

Unlike Recent Documents, the filenames are displayed in the correct case, although [...]

Another thing you will find lurking under the big red A is the Recent Document list. This is a mixed bag too, but most of it is good. It differs from the traditional list that still lives under the File menu in several ways:

Although the default maximum list length is 9 items, you can [...]

So if the Menu Browser isn’t much use for browsing menus, what is it good for? Searching menus, for one thing. Let’s say you’re a very occasional 3D user trying to make a 3D model look pretty. You want to access commands for placing lights, putting the sun in the right place, and changing visual [...]

You have undoubtedly noticed the large red A in the top right corner of the AutoCAD window. Personally, I don’t like the look of it. The concept is rather Fisher-Price and the execution is poor. No competent graphic designer would align the top of the red A exactly with the top of its surrounding button [...]

There’s one screen-based user interface mechanism in AutoCAD 2009 that you probably won’t see bragged about in Autodesk marketing materials. That’s a shame, because it has some strong points:

It can be docked on the side of the screen or allowed to float free.
While floating, it can be resized to the desired width and height.
If [...]

Testing performance under Vista can be an interesting experience. The trouble is, Vista tries to improve its performance by observing what you do and caching it for later use in case you do it again. This leads to something akin to the observer effect in science, where the very act of observing something has an [...]

One of the things I like least about AutoCAD 2009 (at least in Release Candidate form) is that I find it very “sticky”. That is, I find myself having to wait for an instant here, then again there, yet again over there. Most of my testing has been on a middle-aged Pentium 4 (3.0 GHz [...]

You may have noticed that the default AutoCAD background is an off-white shade. In a comment, Tim asked if this is the same as the Block Editor background. No, not quite. This image shows the different backgrounds and some linework, with black as a comparison:

Paper space is pure white (Red, Green, Blue is 255,255,255), Model [...]

For many 3D users of AutoCAD, the ViewCube is likely to be the most useful new thing in AutoCAD 2009. There are a couple of problems with it, at least in the Release Candidate:

It does not work in 2D wireframe mode (which is, paradoxically, where 90% of my 3D work is done). You need to [...]

How do you turn the new screen elements on and off using the keyboard? How about the not-so-new ones? See this table:

Element
On
Off
Toggle

Advanced Render Settings
RPPREF
RPPREFCLOSE
 

Clean Screen
CLEANSCREENON
CLEANSCREENOFF
Ctrl+0

Command line
COMMANDLINE
COMMANDLINEHIDE
Ctrl+9

dbConnect
DBCONNECT
DBCCLOSE
Ctrl+6

DesignCenter
ADCENTER
ADCCLOSE
Ctrl+2

Layer palette
LAYER
LAYERCLOSE
 

Lights
LIGHTLIST
LIGHTLISTCLOSE
 

Markup Set Manager
MARKUP
MARKUPCLOSE
Ctrl+7

Materials
MATERIALS
MATERIALSCLOSE
 

Menu bar
MENUBAR 1
MENUBAR 0
 

NavCube
NAVCUBEDISPLAY 1
NAVCUBEDISPLAY 0
 

Properties palette
PROPERTIES
PROPERTIESCLOSE
Ctrl+1

Quick calc
QUICKCALC
QCCLOSE
Ctrl+8

Ribbon
RIBBON
RIBBONCLOSE
 

Rollover tool tips
ROLLOVERTIPS 1
ROLLOVERTIPS 0
 

Sheet Set Manager
SHEETSET
SHEETSETHIDE
Ctrl+4

Status bar
STATUSBAR 1
STATUSBAR 0
 

Status bar
tray icons
TRAYICONS 1
TRAYICONS [...]

This video shows how the AutoCAD 2009 vertical Ribbon behaves when it is docked on one side. The labels explain what is going on.

The main thing that used to drive me batty with the Dashboard was the way in which expanding one panel would contract another. The vertical Ribbon doesn’t do that, it leaves panels [...]

Dude, Dashboard’s dead. Defunct. Done. AutoCAD 2009 replaced the Dashboard with the Ribbon. If you type in the DASHBOARD or DASHBOARDCLOSE commands, they are just converted to the RIBBON and RIBBONCLOSE commands, which turn the Ribbon on and off.
If you’re a fan of the Dashboard (and I never was), there is good and bad news. [...]

If AutoCAD 2009’s floating toolbars are the best ever, what about when they’re docked? As a starting point, here is AutoCAD 2008 with the Express Tools toolbars docked.

Here is the same thing in AutoCAD 2009.

So a few pixels have been shaved off in one direction and added in another. The end result is that they [...]

I’ve now tested startup times of various AutoCAD releases under Vista. Here are the results, alongside the XP results for ease of comparison:

Release
First
Startup
Subsequent
Startup

XP
Vista
XP
Vista

12
8.6
-
8.2
-

13
2.6
1.8
1.3
0.8

14
2.1
-
0.5
-

2002
3.2
2.1
0.6
1.1

2004
-
4.3
-
1.7

2005
-
7.9
-
4.5

2006
14.9
8.7
2.6
4.4

2007
13.8
11.9
3.5
6.6

2008
14.6
10.5
3.6
6.0

2009
28.9
17.3
7.2
13.3

Same caveats as before, plus the following:

Some AutoCAD releases were not installed on both XP and Vista partitions, hence the gaps in the table.
The Vista tests were performed on the same PC as [...]

This table shows both the initial and subsequent startup times for various releases. Most of the qualifications and caveats from my AutoCAD 2009 - The Prequel Part 6 - Initial Startup Time post still apply here.

Release
First
Startup
Subsequent
Startup

12
8.6
8.2

13
2.6
1.3

14
2.1
0.5

2002
3.2
0.6

2006
14.9
2.6

2007
13.8
3.5

2008
14.6
3.6

2009
28.9
7.2

AutoCAD 2009’s subsequent startups are much less slow than its agonising first startup, as to be expected. Windows XP is [...]

One thing you’ll notice (and dislike) right away with AutoCAD 2009 is that it takes a lot longer to get started. How much longer? About twice as long as recent releases, or about ten times longer than ancient speed demon Release 13. (I bet a 1994 AutoCAD user transported forward in time would be shocked [...]