Outside The Box blogs, Autodesk University anecdotes, articles, blog digests, and product news in chronological order. See Writing for the same material by subject.

Windows offline files

· Tools

Do you use the Windows offline files (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Understanding-offline-files) feature? I asked this question of some IT/CAD administrator types at Autodesk University last week, and was surprised to find that most didn’t even know what it was. In fact, of the dozen or so people I asked, only one actually used the feature. …

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Disable AutoCAD InfoCenter

· Tools

Over the years, I and others have provided instructions for turning off the AutoCAD InfoCenter (or Communication Center in older versions). The instructions are different depending on the AutoCAD version. To make things simple, I decided to roll them all up into a single one-size-fits-all MSI file that disables InfoCenter for any and all versions of AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT in one fell swoop. …

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Visual Studio 2010 Migration Post Mortem

· Programming

I have more or less completed the task of migrating my internal projects to Visual Studio 2010. Native C++ programmers are pretty low on the totem pole of programming coolness these days, but Microsoft did throw us a few bones. At this point I have to say I’m ambivalent overall with VS 2010, but I really like some of the architectural changes and I’m excited about the future. …

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