Crazy question about saving dwg's

[eric.kirk]

My company has been working off a SharePoint server for a couple of years now, but I am getting very frustrated about the lack of version control we get from our CAD files. I am wondering if any one knows of a way the force autocad to save like a normal program, so SharePoint will keep a file backup for us now, it would be nice to be able to use this nice cloud storage features. I would use a LISP routine even. There is just no reason to rename then delete a file for each save, it fills the online trash can up too. I am using 2020 but we have a few on older versions. Any ideas would be appreciated, also if you have a cloud file store that can handle this that would be welcome too. I am currently trying ADesk BIM 360 but am not impressed right now.
I really hope there is just an old system variable that I don't know about that does this.

[tedg]

I don't use a cloud or A360, so I'm not sure what you mean by "version control".
If you mean saving to a version of AutoCAD, that can be controlled in your AutoCAD options>Open and Save

If that's not what you meant, than I can't help, sorry.

[eric.kirk]

In Dropbox or OneDrive or SharePoint, every time you edit a word or text file, or any type of file. The cloud storage will save the old version as a 1.0,2.0,3.0 kind of thing. So if you need to look at a copy of the file that's from say 2 months ago you can retrieve it easily in the web interface. The problem is autocad when you save a file is saves as a tmp file then renames(or deletes per your settings) the current file to XXX.bak then renames the tmp file to XXX.dwg this process breaks any way you would retain versioning, I expect even windows file versioning could not handle this behavior.
The only thing I am looking for is a setting that will force AutoCAD to save over the old file without deleting the original.

[vtmiii]

auto cad will create a bak file of the original om the server as you save, but it also creates a bak file on your on computer and every time it will create it with a slightly different name. if you want to keep the original drawing as is, then lock it down so that when it is open you are forced to save as so that it can be worked on. if I think of something else I will let you know

[Ed Jobe]

In Options, you can turn off (1.) bak file creation. It will then only save to the current file. If you have a slow internet connection and AUTOSAVE takes a long time, you can also turn off (2.) incremental saves. This has consequences though, in protecting against data loss. The other way you could handle it is to download the file, work on it locally on your C:\ drive, then check the final save back into Sharepoint.

[ashleigh.meeks618884]

Using the Express Tools command MOVEBAK allows you to redirect all your backup files to a single local folder.