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NanoCAD as a replacement for AutoCAD 2016 ?

AutoCAD 2016 Windows 11

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#1 Paul McRae

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 10:44 PM

AutoCAD 2016 will no longer with Windows 11 Jan 2025 windows upgrade and I need a replacement!

Many years ago I worked on a large design project (at home) and as part of my contract, I purchased AutoCAD 2016 at huge expense (not my money!). Now retired and I have my entire house in great detail in AutoCAD 2016. My PC has just had a big windows update and AutoCAD 2016 comes up with 'fatal error out of memory' (computer has 32G RAM!), checked with AutoDesk, AutoCAD 2016 is not supported anymore and it appears I am not alone in that AutoCAD 2016 stops working for many users with the Jan 2025 windows 11 upgrade.

So I need a new CAD system, obviously I am retired and only use it to keep track of where the plumbing and electrical cables are in my house so my budget is about 1% of the $2500 that I paid for AutoCAD 2016! I only use a fraction of AutoCAD 2016s features, however, I do need to be able to turn layers on and off, make them different colours etc, snap to the nearest 5mm and use polylines of different thicknesses, print to a HP LaserJet (I think that's it), I understand NanoCAD 5 free cannot do this, is this true? If so does anybody know of a free simple CAD system?

Regards
A very pissed off AutoCAD user who over 35 years has given them a lot of money and been personally responsible for a huge amount of business!

#2 Paul McRae

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Posted 02 February 2025 - 11:45 PM

I have installed NanoCAD 5 and half the stuff you read on the net is cobblers (and in fact some of the stuff on the NanoCAD website is not true). NanoCAD 5 free does come with full layer control (exactly the same with AutoCAD 2016), it does snap the same as AutoCAD (the issue is that there is no SNAP command so you have to go via a dialogue box), Polylines, rectangles, blocks all identical. Any AutoCAD 2016 user will be fully conversant with the minor differences in half an hour! So far I am very impressed and this appears to be exactly what I want.
There are some dopey bits, in that if you have a super dooper CAD card it doesn't recognise it unless you find the option, select test graphic card and then it uses it and even more silly, makes all the toolbars 3mm high but all you need to do is Tools-->Options-->Customise, set Windows default and Toolbar size to medium, then find the dialogue box-->colours, bit of tweaking and I reckon you have AutoCAD 2016!
There are some great bits for AutoCAD 2016 hardened users, when you select a line, the property box remain dynamic so you can simply change the properties, fantastic feature! Also you can use NanoCAD 5 in a non full screen window, where AutoCAD 2016 has always had a few stupidities where the property box slides off the main window or the command line / error line extends out of the window etc.
But... so far I would say an AutoCAD 2016 user could happily migrate to NanoCAD 5 and say good riddance to AutoCAD trying to stitch us up by converting lifetime licenses into annual licenses via the back door!

#3 Artemio

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Posted 03 February 2025 - 07:07 PM

and in addition to previous comment, nanoCAD Free (nanoCAD 5) works with dwg up to 2013.
In your particular case it depends in what compatibility version you'd saved previous drawings.
For example, when click "save as" you have an option "save as type" where you can select compatible type.
nanoCAD Free (nanoCAD 5) works with DWG up to 2013 type.
Attached Image: version.jpg
Attached Image: saveas.jpg





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