Thanks for sharing, but for me, those steps didn't work out so well I'm probably doing something wrong, but for me the main issue being the Properties palette not working, that's pretty much a deal breaker for me. Also, your steps for the DDE issue are ok, but I get a new instance of AutoCAD each time I open from Explorer (instead of the DWG being hosted in one instance of AutoCAD (multiple Windows) which is annoying. Also, I just noticed some of the commands I use are not working, for instance, IMAGE gives "unknown command"... Ouch - MTEXT completely bombs out.... Hmm - I have a feeling that those issues you mention in setup might have something to do with it? Do you see the same problems? Any ideas?