Let’s assume the acad.ctb is the default.

There is a button to the right of the plot style table name.  Hover over it with your mouse pointer.  A Tooltip should appear identifying it as the Edit button.  Click on it.  This should bring up the Plot Style Table Editor – acad.ctb dialog window.

On the left side is the list of Plot Styles represented by a color swatch followed by a descriptor.  The first one listed should be red, Color 1 followed by the “standard” color designations as used by earlier versions of AutoCAD like r14.

On the right side are the Properties for each Plot Style.  If you look down the list you’ll see the item Pen #.  The default is set to “Automatic”.  Using the up/down arrows to the right one can change this setting.

My suggestion would be that you go through the Plot Styles setting your pen numbers and then do a “Save As” and save this ctb file under a unique name that will be instantly recognizable to you.  For example you might name it WendysPlotStyle.  Then whenever you plot use this unique style and ignore all the rest.

Note that lineweight can be controlled in your plot style as well as in your drawing.  If you open the Layer Properties Manager you’ll see a column heading for Lineweight.  Each layer can have a lineweight assigned to it.

2011 holds a lot of surprises and options for you.  Hope you enjoy making use of some of them.

I have just made the massive jump from Autocad R14 to Autocad 2011.

It comes as no surprise to me that you would have trouble with r14 or 2002 for that matter running on a Win7 based system.  The earliest version I dared to load was 2004.  That's on a Win7 Ultimate 64-bit system.  I also have 2007, 2010, and 2011.

Yes I tried all image commands at the command prompt and none of these work. I also loaded express tools and the image commands are the only ones that dont work.