When AutoCAD was changed to a windows program it took forever - many releases - to become a fully windows compatible program. We spent a lot of time looking at the windows animated working icon superimposed over the centre of the crosshairs.
Little things during the transition to windows were annoying - like the fact that AutoCAD did not remember the previous file you opened - so you spent half your day scrolling through a window full of dwg files.... looking for the next one in a series to open.
The ones that really bug me are the ones that they do on purpose. Like when they introduced a revised properties dialog and - oops forgot to include a select objects button. Yes, anyone with half a brain could come up with more than one work-around. That's not the point. If that sort of thing is the only thing they can think of to make an upgrade worthwhile....
AutoCAD is filled with ideas that may have been good but the execution was bad. Case in point - "QTEXT" - this little gem changes text to just a rectangular outline of each text entity. Back in the bad old days computers were so outmatched by the software that this was worth a try. In practice the outline was so far out of sync with the actual space taken up by the text that it was useless.
All software has it's bad points as well as it's good, so why does AutoCAD create such strong opinions? Because AutoDESK makes microsoft look like a charity. Because AutoCAD is an industry standard and they milk it for more than it's worth. They like to cry about how many illegal AutoCAD seats exist out there but if all of the janitors at AutoDESK aren't driving Ferrari's their accounting department needs to investigated, big time. Want value for money? Your out of luck! Want software that actually does everything they claim? Sorry. Want customer support? Wait, but not too long or they will retire the software version your currently using....
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