What Happened to my Workspace?

I often get support calls asking about CUI and workspace issues. In the surveying department at the company where I work, this happens quite often with Eagle Point. Because we want to make the Civil 3D commands available to the surveyors, we use the civil.cui file as the main customization file in the Eagle_Point_98 profile. Ever so often, this gets reset to the acad.cui file and therefore, the user's everyday workspace is no longer available.

Here's how to verify which CUI file is being used and how to change it if necessary:

1. At the command prompt, type options and select the Profiles tab.
   


2. Under the "available profiles:" list, verify that Current profile: (at the top of the dialog box) is set to the correct profile.
   
   
   


3. If the correct profile was already current, then select the Files tab.
   
   


4. Under the heading of "Customization Files", select the next to "Main Customization File" (red circle) and check which file is being used (blue rectangle).
   


5. If you're expecting to see "...civil.cui" but you don't , then left click on path below "Main Customization File" (blue rectangle) and then select the "Browse" command button (red rectangle) on the right.


6. The default location for the cui files in Civil 3D (Windows XP) is at
   C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Autodesk\C3D 2008\enu\support\
   where "User" is your "user name" on that computer.
   

So the next time you think that AutoCAD just "ate your workspace", be sure and verify that you not just using the wrong CUI file.