Tried and true ACAD 2008 install suddenly going loopy...

[crbateman]

I have an old ACAD 2008 install on my laptop that I use two or three times a week to run some lisps and such that don't run right or at all on the newer versions. Never had any problems with this install before, but today, when I fired up the program, I was met by a message that said I had 11 days to validate the install!?! So, I bypassed the message and brought up the Drawing Editor, and was surprised to see that all my customized button menus were missing from their accustomed location in the dashboard... It was now completely blank. So out of curiosity, I typed in "CUI" at the command line, and was confronted by several error panels telling me that the program was unable to locate this file or that file in the CUI category.

It appears that the program has lost its way and reverted back to a seemingly vanilla version of itself, including the loss of the validation data. I hope I can get it straightened out without a re-install and without having to redo all the customization and pathing, etc., as I need to be working with it, not fixing it. Naturally, this had to happen when I have deadlines looming. Can any of you folks more familiar than I (that would be just about all of you ) give me some ideas how I might get things back to normal? I should add that it's running on a Win7 64-bit machine with tons of resources.

Thanks!

[crbateman]

No ideas? Anyone?

[Wanderer]

No ideas? Anyone?

Sorry, nope... never experienced that myself.

[crbateman]

Could anyone tell me how I might reach someone from Autodesk about this? I understand that they no longer support Acad2008, so I may need to find a back door. Starting to get desperate now...

[cadtag]

If it's a stand-aline 2008 that's never been upgraded, you can get support from Adesk at least as far as getting authorization. Either use the automated authroization proce3ss, or contact your reseller.

If that license was ever upgraded, you're using it in violation of the EULA, as you've only got a limited time before you're required to uninstall the old versions after upgrading the license. If the seat was on subscription, then you can only run 2013 + plus three versions back, eg 2012, 2011, 2010. Not 2008. Bascially, under either upgrade our subscription, you are in violation of the license terms, and at risk of copyright lawsuits to the tune of $150K instance. If it was a purchased stand-alone license that was never upograded or placed on subscription, Autodesk MUST provide authorization codes, as it was purchased as a perpetual use license.

So, either no problem, or insurmountable problem. If it's insurmountable, see about getting the lisp code updated to work on the legitmate install. It should not be a deal breaker -- LISP has not changed a whole lot since R14 and the inclusion of VisualLISP -- minor tweaks should be all that's needed.