A recent question came into the Autodesk Product Feedback web form received from a Dallas based AutoCAD 2009 customer asking how they could get their traditional/classic menus in AutoCAD 2009 to look like a previous release.
It was a simple solution and answered by AutoCAD Senior Product Designer Yan Schober.
If you'd like to work with the traditional drop-down menus, you can type MENUBAR 1 at the command line, which will bring back the old menu structure, or you can click the "gear' icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen and selected AutoCAD Classic from the menu.
I would encourage you to explore the new ribbon interface before switching back to the traditional drop-down menus; we understand that it will take some time getting used to the changes, but believe that using the new ribbon interface will pay off in the long run.
If you’d like to understand more about the rationale behind the new ribbon interface, here is an article that you might find interesting:
Before After 
Now taking UI retro things much further…for the AutoCAD Geeks out there!
You can even revert your AutoCAD 2009 UI "(User Interface) back to a pseudo R14 look if you want but be warned you will lose quite a bit of functionality resulting in less productivity.
- Set the Crosshair size to 100% in Options>Display or CURSORSIZE 100
- Enable the Side Menu in Options>Display
- Set the Commandline background color to Blue and text to White ala R12
- Set both the 2D and 3D the Model background to black in Options>Display and disable grid (F7)
- Disable Showing Tabs, Panel, and Tiles
- Disable ViewCube in Options>3D Modeling
- Enable Model and Paperspace Tabs
- Disable ToolTips and rollover ToolTips
- Right-click on Object Snap icons and uncheck use icons to get the Text icons instead of graphical.
- Disable QuickAccess Toolbar commonly referred to as the QAT like Kitty QAT.
- Disable icons in Tray
- And more…
I’m sure I could document this better and even do more mods/tweaks but here was a quickie. I will share the profile and CUI later.
If you have questions or feedback for an Autodesk product team please use the Autodesk Product Feedback web form as this goes direct to the teams and I have seen proof of the team responding as well as listening. Make sure to tell them that Shaan told you to email them. The only thing I ask is provide details and be constructive as a frustrated or vague email or wish list item is hard to respond to.
OK back to work and also Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday appears to have been a Patch Wednesday for me with a ton of important updates for my Windows Vista and Office 2007.
Cheers,
Shaan