Exporting to Previous AutoCAD Versions

It seems to never fail when I send a Civil 3D 2011 or 2012 drawing to a client or contractor I always get the dreaded email in response. "Can you send it as a 2000, 2004, or 2007 version please" depending on which release they are using. You may be surprised at how many people never left Release 14 which is very sad.

That being said I have developed a procedure that so far has cut the follow up complaints to a minimum when they open the new drawing. If you have a better procedure or have additional advice, please share.

1. First I save the drawing as a new name just as a precaution.
2. Next I purge everything I can
3. Then I audit the drawing with the "Y" option
4. Then I type in "aecobjexplode" for good measure
5. Then I use the export to AutoCAD option to the desired version. 
6. Done

I did have problems using the save as a previous version option, at least from the clients that were opening it up in a older Land Desktop version so make sure you use the Export option.