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Scenario: We have a large repository of AutoCAD DWG drawings that we migrated from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2010.

By default, when clicking one of the DWG files in SharePoint 2010 it tries to download the file rather than opening it like an Office document would.

In IIS on the server, I set the MIME-Type for .DWG to image/vnd.dwg to match what AutoCAD and DWG TrueView use in the registry. With that set, SharePoint now shows the dialog box to open the document read only or to edit the document.

On my Windows 7 machine with AutoCAD 2012 and DWG TrueView, selecting the Edit option opens the DWG in whichever program is set as my default.

Issue: Most of my users are on Windows XP. When they click the document in SharePoint, they are prompted with the Read Only / Edit options. However, SharePoint then says:

"The document could not be opened for editing. A Microsoft SharePoint Foundation compatible application could not be found to edit the document."

Why does Windows 7 work for this but not Windows XP? And how can I resolve the issue?

Thanks.

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  • I'm trying to understand the SPS2003 connection. Did DWG files in your SPS2003 farm open in the correct client program? Also, what CAD applications are installed on the XP machines?
    – shufler
    Commented Jan 19, 2012 at 23:52
  • Yes, they opened correctly in 2003. Have tried AutoCAD 2012 and DWG TrueView 2012 on the XP machines.
    – John Chapman
    Commented Jan 20, 2012 at 2:49

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I was able to come up with a solution that worked for us:

1) In the Web Application settings for this web application I set the file handling to permissive (to prevent the "noopen" header from being added to DWG files)

2) To simply open the documents read-only, the users can now just click the document in the library and hit open.

3) To edit documents, the users must check out the document and specify to use the local drafts folder. Once they do that, it will open in AutoCAD correctly and they can edit the documents. Then they just check them back in.

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Web CAD SDK from CADSoftTools promises DWG support in SharePoint: http://cadsofttools.com/products/web_cad_sdk/

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