QCAD.org Forum

I have done some design work over the last year of so and saved them as .dwg files, and now I get the following message when I open QCAD (3.16.7): "The trial add-on DWG is no longer active (more than 100 runs). To start using this QCAD add-on productively, please purchase the full version..." I am unable to open the .dwg files I have created.

1 Do I now need to buy QCAD to be able to continue developing those designs?
2 Is it safe to uninstall QCAD and reinstall the latest version (as I think is recommended), either buying it or re-downloading the free version, without losing any of the data in my designs?

clueless wrote:1 Do I now need to buy QCAD to be able to continue developing those designs?

That would indeed be the general idea, yes. The trial version is not intended for production use but to be able to try the software before you decide if you want to buy and use it.

clueless wrote:2 Is it safe to uninstall QCAD and reinstall the latest version (as I think is recommended), either buying it or re-downloading the free version, without losing any of the data in my designs?

Yes, your drawing files are unaffected by any updates or by uninstalling QCAD - provided that you did not save your drawing files into the QCAD application directory (which is never recommended in any case). In other words, please always make sure you save your drawings into your home folder, Desktop folder or any other data folder and not anywhere in "C:\Program Files".