Exiting AutoCAD with Markup Set Manager open leads to slow down over time

Problem
Over the course of several months, some users of the Markup Set Manager (DWF users) can experience increasing slowness in launching AutoCAD. Exiting AutoCAD 2007 (or AutoCAD 2006) with the Markup Set Manager open results in the growth of an AutoCAD profile file. When the file reaches sizes of near 90MB, users start to see a slow down. Uninstalling and re-installing AutoCAD does not fix the problem, since the slow down is caused by a file in a hidden directory that AutoCAD does not uninstall.

Solution
If you frequently use the Markup Set Manager and are experiencing a noticeably slower launch time for AutoCAD:

1. Delete the ‘FixedProfile.aws’ file which is normally found at C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Application Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2007\R17.0\enu\Support\Profiles. The file can safely be deleted. It contains user profile settings related dialog positions and sizes. It will be programmatically created on exit if missing.
2. You can avoid the increase in the file size by closing the Markup Set Manager before closing AutoCAD. If you are not in the habit of doing so, you can periodically delete the FixedProfile.aws file. The normal size for this file is less than 100K, not 90MB.

The problem has only been experienced by a few customers; however, after using AutoCAD daily for several months, one customer reported that his AutoCAD took 10 - 20 minutes to launch and was using 1.5GB of RAM. The solution is being reported in this blog until we get a fix to address it, as it is not being incorporated into AutoCAD 2007 SP1.

Disclaimer
It is always a good idea to back up a system before making changes. Care should be exercised when deleting files or making changes to any system.