Recovery Mode

Here is a sad fact; AutoCAD crashes so much, there is a function exclusively for recovering drawing files after a crash. It's called the Drawing Recovery Manager.

I hate the Drawing Recovery Manager. Maybe it's because when Autodesk first introduced the function, it seemed to corrupt drawings instead of saving them, maybe it's because I save often and know where to find my back up files.

See the image below. In the Open and Save tab of Options check the box to create backup files, then in the Files tab specify where you want them saved to.


In any event, I don't like having to close the Drawing Recovery Manager when I restart AutoCAD. Lucky for me and maybe you, there is a system variable out there to help, RECOVERYMODE.

On the command line, type in RECOVERYMODE and change it to 0, 1, or 2.

Here is a list of what the 3 variables mean:

0 Recovery information is not recorded, the Drawing Recovery window does not display automatically after a system failure, and any recovery information in the system registry is removed.

1 Recovery information is recorded, but the Drawing Recovery window does not display automatically after a system failure.

2 Recovery information is recorded, and the Drawing Recovery window displays automatically in the next session after a system failure.

One of them is right for you, and maybe you recovered a few second of your day for reading Blogs instead of closing a palette you don't use.

Thanks to Joe Konen of Alvine Engineering for the idea for this article.