I’m not a mechanical designer but I have occasional need for such software. I had AutoCAD a long time ago – don’t recall if it was NT4 or XP but AutoCAD got more expensive than justified for my use. I now do (model) building designs on FreeCAD and Blender. Maybe not sufficient for pro use – but then again, improvements on the freebies are generated by those that see subscription-based programs as inspiration to duplicate and 2nd-source.

Two examples in my work:

For photos: Adobe Photoshop was the “gold standard” – maybe still is – but they went to a subscription service; you can’t buy the software, you can only rent it. I now find RawTherapee and GIMP do everything Photoshop does (for my use anyway) and the prices are much better (free).

Y’all may have picked up that part of my profession is electronics – if not, now you know (BSEE/MSEE). There, Cadence and Altrium are considered the “must haves” but I have found LTspice, KiCAD, and ElectricVLSI (plus a few other specialty routines) do everything I need – at a professional level – that the more expensive corporate-level programs can do (there’s got to be some sort of “mutual agreement” there). Price is also much better – free.

And I don’t have to amortize the cost of software in my contracts.

Those free drafting programs may have improved enough to justify dumping AutoCAD (and the programs I use accept DXF imports). You might want to look into them.

By the way, my understanding is Win11 has also shifted to a subscription service – MS wants your computer to phone home even if you’re not using internet. I can’t say for sure; I switched to Linux several years ago.

“You will own nothing and like it“

I got off the board and on to other things just as Autocad was coming out and never had a sufficient reason to pick it up, the “readers” were good enough for me to look at things and snap dimensions and so forth. But those of us selling projects and project managing back in those days hated it because we lost control of what the electronic drafters were doing to us. Used to be, when graphite ruled the earth, you could come in early or hang around late and look at their boards to see if the drafters were off on a tangent and stop them before they wasted too much time. But with electronic drafting, OOOPSIE! the machines were turned off at quitting time and not turned back on until they got done drinking coffee the next morning, and if they didn’t want you looking over their shoulder during the day, they’d click a couple key-strokes and OOOPSIE! the screen would go blank. Oh, it’s updating, they’d say. Later when I got the urge to pick it up on my own, the cost was prohibitive and I could never find a free program that was worth a crap. I know there’s alternatives now but I’m way past having to worry about it in what’s left of what passes for my career.

But damn, Ghost, what a mess. I feel for ya, man. Dead in the water doesn’t come close to describing it, all your archived stuff is in peril as well. If ever there was a reason to despise Bill Gates, and there are many, all that crap that came after XP and Microsoft ceasing to support it provided it.

So very sorry, Ghost. That is devastating; I hope and pray you find a solution.