Autodesk has yet again demonstrated why continuous automatic updating is no panacea for avoiding CAD update disruption. On the contrary…

If you have noticed some of your PDFs exported from AutoCAD getting huge and unwieldy lately, AutoCAD 2017.1.1 could be to blame. Try uninstalling it using Programs and Features > View Installed Updates and see if the problem goes away. It may also be possible to work around this by going into PDF options and turning on Include Hyperlinks. Source: The Swamp.

Here’s one possible* install history:

• You install AutoCAD 2017. This defaults to also installing Autodesk desktop app. If this works on your system and you leave it on there doing its thing and consuming your resources, it will attempt to automatically keep your Autodesk software up to date.
• Autodesk desktop app installed AutoCAD 2017.1. You like this because it has added a couple of nice features. In apparently unrelated news, you seem to be getting more fatal errors and several of your add-ins have stopped working. You decide to do without them.
• Autodesk desktop app installed AutoCAD 2017.1.1. Your add-ins have magically started working again and there seem to be fewer fatal errors.
• You get some huge PDFs from AutoCAD but read this post and uninstall AutoCAD 2017.1.1. The PDFs you create are no longer huge, but your add-ins have stopped working again and there seem to be more fatal errors.
• You read this other post and manually install the AutoCAD 2017.1 Hotfix. Your add-ins start working again. The fatal errors remain.
• Autodesk desktop app continually and perpetually nags you to install AutoCAD 2017.1.1.**
• You uninstall Autodesk desktop app. Your system speeds up and the nags go away.

Moral of the story? Autodesk isn’t competent enough to trust with automatic updates. Uninstall Autodesk desktop app. Relax.

* YMMV
** I don’t know if this actually happens (Autodesk desktop app is not going to be installed on any of my systems to find out) but it wouldn’t surprise me.