When I opened AutoCAD 2016 for the first time, I (like the rest of you) noticed the Start tab. That was all well and good and I thought that it would go away when I opened a drawing, similar to previously releases. But then I opened an existing drawing and noticed the Start tab was still there. My thought was “Ok, I will close it so I don’t have an extra tab”. The problem was that there was no “X” on the tab to close it like other tabs.
Autodesk decided to keep the Start tab open all the time with this release for users to be able to quickly access the information on the Start tab. As a matter of fact, Autodesk has a new command called “GOTOSTART” that you can issue at any time to jump directly to the Start tab. However, I didn’t want to have that tab open all of the time.
The “secret” to getting rid of the Start tab is through a new system variable that Autodesk added in the 2016 release. This variable controls whether the Start tab is displayed or not displayed.
The easiest way to turn off the Start tab is to type STARTMODE (the system variable) at the command line. Type 0 (zero) and press Enter to turn off displaying the Start tab.
To get the Start tab to display again, use the STARTMODE command again and set the value to 1 (one).
Note that this setting takes affect the next time you open AutoCAD and does not immediately close the Start tab. The same is true when you turn the Start tab variable back on. You can not turn the Start tab on and off during the same AutoCAD session.
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