Why will you not Launch as Civil 3D

[schristie]

I cannot get AutoCAD to launch as Civil 3D. I have tried the desktop short cut and via the start menu and every time it launches as AutoCAD 2009.

[jpaulsen]

Try changing the workspace to C3D Complete.

[sinc]

And if it's not simply a Workspace issue as Jeff mentioned, select your desktop shortcut and look at its Properties. On the "Shortcut" tab, in the "Target" section, you should be specifying the User Profile to load. For example, on my system, the "Target" looks like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009\acad.exe" /p "C3D2009"

This is loading my Profile named "C3D2009" at startup.

The default shortcut is typically configured to load the "<<Unnamed Profile>>", like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009\acad.exe" /p "<<Unnamed Profile>>"

I usually recommend to people that, when they start using Civil 3D, copy the "<<Unnamed Profile" to a new Profile with a different name, such as "C3D2009", and then switch to that Profile. Then customize the "C3D2009" Profile however you wish, and change the desktop shortcuts so they load the "C3D2009" Profile at startup, instead of the "<<Unnamed Profile>>".

I recommend this for two reasons. The first is that, whenever you install a service pack, the <<Unnamed Profile>> gets reset to its default, and you lose any customizations you have done to it. The other reason is that C3D can export the <<Unnamed Profile>> to an .arg file, but it cannot reimport it - during the import process, those angle-braces in the Profile name cause the import to fail.