Getting a Missing AutoCAD Menu Bar to Load

by R Kamalathasan, Assistant Manager (Projects), The Magnum Group

I just surmounted a strange problem in AutoCAD 2007: my toolbars did not load during my AutoCAD session but everything else worked fine.

When I typed the “menuload” command, the “Load\Unload Customizations” dialogue box opened; I browsed to the “Select Customization File” dialog box and selected the “acad.cui” file and when I tried to load…  it didn’t load.

I tried some other methods (suggested by a user forum) such as replacing the “acad.cui” file, assigning a different path to support files and support files from cache…so on and so on… nothing worked!

Finally I decided to repair the AutoCAD installation through the control panel.

First I tried “Repair errors in my AutoCAD 2007 installation” option and restarted AutoCAD; the problem persisted. Next I tried the “Repair registry” option… no use. I finally tried the “Reinstall AutoCAD 2007” option but that didn’t solve the problem either.

I was frustrated that I couldn’t crack the puzzle.

After two days, when I Googled “menuload failed loading in AutoCAD 2007”, I came across this link: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=6132379&linkID=9240617

Yes, I finally got to the root of the matter:

The culprit was the XMLINST.exe file. It was missing (somehow?) from the specified path in the Windows directory. I downloaded it and extracted it to the specified path in Windows.

Then I restarted AutoCAD.

Hurray!… my AutoCAD 2007 was restored to the original condition!