Re: AUTOCAD MECH 2009 BUGS

URICHJ,
Here are a few things that will hipefully help:

On the blank properties pallet:
This is almost always a sure sign of a bad install, uninstall and reinstall,
make sure all virus scanning software is turned off.

On annotative dims:
See above, I’m thinking this is related. Also see below, because you have to
ensure that each dim family is annotative when using annotative and powerdims
together.

On power dimensioning $0: 
Powerdims use dimension groups, dim groups are always designated with the $ and
a number. This is standard functionality and is working as designed. There is no
way to use powerdims and not use dim groups. But it's still controlled under the
top level dim style so I've never seen a drawback with letting powerdims do
their thing. But I have seen plenty of people who dislike powerdims because the
do not understand the tool.

On Crashes:
Several people have noted that 2009 will not run on a less capable machine, so
an upgrade maybe required. This may be part of your issue with layout tabs, and
general performacne.

On the Publish issue:
I think there is a known bug with 2009 that setting the PUBLISHCOLLATE variable
to 0 helps. Of course this is a workaround, so expect a hotfix or SP to address
it.

On deploying it company wide:
I have yet to figure out why people would ever consider implementing an upgrade
before the first SP is released. Put simply, why not let others fight and
discover these issues unless you just have the time to mess around with it. But
judging from the tone of this post, I’m guessing you have more frustration
than time right now.

On getting your money back:
We stay on subscription and therefore I figure I can skip implementing a couple
of releases and still come out ahead. And as it turns out that’s probably
exactly what we’ll do. Because I don’t see enough in 2009 to warrant an
upgrade.