Installing CamDRAW Updates Without Losing Your Settings
CamDRAW is updated regularly, and updates within the same major version are included with your licence. Installing one is the same procedure as the original installation, with one useful property: your configuration is not touched.
Why your settings survive
CamDRAW keeps program files and settings in two different places.
The program files sit in CorelDRAW's add-on directory, inside the CorelDRAW program folder. An update replaces them.
Your settings sit in your user profile at C:\Users<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\CamDRAW 4. This is where the application settings file, your inch and millimetre tool lists, the log file and your postprocessors live. An update does not write here.
So tool libraries, cutting data, profiles and edited postprocessors all carry over. There is nothing to export beforehand and nothing to restore afterwards.
Before updating
Read the release notes first. They list what has changed, and occasionally contain a note that matters for your setup.
CorelDRAW documents keep their machining data inside the CDR file, so existing projects continue to work after an update.
Installing the update
Download the current setup from the download area. The same installer serves both new installations and updates.
Close CorelDRAW. The installer writes into the add-on directory, which Windows blocks while the program is running. Skipping this is the usual reason an update appears to install and changes nothing.
Run the setup as administrator. Right-click the file and choose Run as administrator.
Select the same CorelDRAW version you installed into before. Updates of the same major version go into the same directory, which is what turns an installation into an update. Selecting a different CorelDRAW product installs a fresh copy there instead of updating the existing one.
Accept the licence terms and click Install, then close the setup.
Open CorelDRAW and start CamDRAW from the bottom of the Tools menu.
Your licence stays active. There is no need to enter the key again.
Checking the installed version
Click the gear icon at the top of the CamDRAW docker, next to the logo, and open the Info tab. The version number is shown there, and in the title of the activation window.
Several CorelDRAW versions on one machine
Each installation is independent. If CamDRAW runs in more than one CorelDRAW version, run the update once per version and select the matching product each time.
They share the same settings folder in your user profile, so tool lists and postprocessors are common to all of them. Only the program files are separate.
After a CorelDRAW upgrade
Installing a new CorelDRAW version does not carry plugins over. Run the CamDRAW setup again and select the new CorelDRAW product as the installation target.
Your settings folder is untouched by this, so the new installation starts with your existing tool lists and profiles already in place.
If something is wrong after an update
The settings folder contains a Backup folder, written each time the application starts. If a configuration problem appears after an update, the previous state is there.
For anything the release notes do not explain, our support team helps by email and phone.