Today SolidWorks released an update to service pack 4.0 in it’s Customer Portal.  SolidWorks 2009 SP4.1 is now available for all subscription customers to download through the Downloads and Updates page.

The list of fixed SPR’s is not available yet so it is hard to say what has been updated in this service pack.  I would imagine that the hotfix (S-039735) that was issued for the Windows Vista 64bit and Microsoft Office 2007 has been incorporated into the release.

One quick thing to remember, if you have downloaded the aforementioned hotfix you will need to uninstall it via the Control Panel before you can upgrade to this service pack.  However, if I were you I would wait to make sure that the hotfix has been included in SP4.1 before updating and make sure that there are features important enough for you to upgrade.  To hear more about this check out Rob Jensen’s blog post titled “If it isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it.  Installing Service Packs”.

Please feel free to share your experiences with SolidWorks 2009 SP4.1 here in the comment section as well.

So today I was browsing around on Twitter and read that Chris Serran was sitting in on a webinar given by Greg Jankowski about a new and improved SolidWorks Forums site that will be launched sometime soon.

This is all it took to wet my appetite to see exactly what some of the SolidWorks employees have been working on lately to enhance the user experience of the forums.  Unfortunately I jumped in about 15 minutes after the start but was still able to catch some awesome enhancements that I am looking forward to seeing and using in the new forums.  I did notice some other bloggers also in the webinar and maybe they can drop some comments here about some of the things I missed.

When I hopped on the webinar train Greg was talking about some of the My Profile changes that you will see.  Some of the highlights were you will now be able to have “friends” inside the forums which will allow you to easily follow what some users are posting and also a “similar people” function which will automatically be populated with other forum members that are posting similar questions as you are.  This will definitely increase the ability to network with people that are working with similar tools that you are, which will be a huge benefit in case you run into something that stumps the living tar out of you.  You will also be able to subscribe to “groups” inside the forums.

Another thing that is being revamped is file uploading.  It used to be a tedious process of uploading files to your topic but now it takes a matter of seconds and about 2 clicks.  A very welcome and much needed change.  Other things that have been changed to the posting process is the ability to add a video, bookmark & tag topics along with the ability to easily mark the correct answer to your question.  The feature that I have been wanting for some time now will also finally be available, message threading.  It will now be easier to track a discussion in the forum as opposed to having just a running list of this and that and not having a clue as to what questions people are answering.

In the new forum there will be 3 levels of members (similar to what is there now).  The 3 levels will be member, contributor, and MVP.  You will be able to move through these levels by a point system.  It sounds as if points will be awarded for posting topics, responding to topics and having the correct answer.   Another new feature that I am looking forward to seeing develop is a blog section.  SolidWorks employees will be writing these blog posts about various topics like Jim Wilkinson in the UI arena and Greg Jankowski in the CAD Admin and Forums arena.

All in all I am really looking forward to seeing this new forum in action and actually being able to use it.  Now don’t fret, all of your current information will automatically get transferred to the new forum except for your signature.  So unless you spent 3 1/2 years making your signature for the current forum you will not lose anything major.  Supposedly there will be some sort of an announcement made some time early next week about the new and improved forums so definitely stay tuned.

If you would like to follow along with some of the conversation about this you can check out the thread in the current forums by clicking here.

It looks as if there has been a lot of activity at the SolidWorks headquarters today as the official SolidWorks 2010 Beta page went live today and also SolidWorks 2009 SP4.0 Early Visibility is also live.

If you are at all interested in shaping the next release of SolidWorks it is highly recommended that you participate in the beta program.  Matt Lombard did a blog post about beta testing earlier this week that gave some tips for those of you that are interested in doing some testing for SolidWorks.  You can check out that blog post here.  In order to sign up for the program and be advised of information regarding to it you will need to activate it in Customer Portal profile.  To do this 1.) log into the Customer Portal 2.) Click My Profile 3.) check Notify me for Beta Programs.  Simple, huh?  So there you have it, sign up now and get ready to help make the next version of SolidWorks the best ever.

The 2nd big item from SolidWorks today was the release of SolidWorks 2009 SP4.0 Early Visibility to the Downloads page of the Customer Portal.  I am not seeing any information in the Fixed SPR’s section yet about this release but I am sure that will be coming in the near future.  So if you are on the cutting edge and want the latest version of SolidWorks on your machine go ahead and download it today and see what kinds of new or fixed stuff it includes.  I am personally planning on downloading it tonight overnight.  Please feel free to leave any comments here if you find an important patch or fix while running this version.  I would love to hear and see what you discover.

Good luck and have fun with these 2 releases!

SolidWorks has officially released version 2009 SP3.0 to the general public today.  Looking at the Fixed SPR’s page it seems to be a healthy chunk of fixes that are included in this new service pack.  You are free to get the update with an active SolidWorks Subscription Service by going to the SolidWorks Customer Portal and then to the Downloads and Updates page. 

To download SolidWorks 2009 SP3.0 click here.

To view the Fixed SPR’s in SolidWorks 2009 SP3.0 click here.

Today SolidWorks released service pack 2.1 just weeks after the release of service pack 2.0 and only days before SolidWorks WORLD 2009. I do not think I am going to download this service pack until AFTER my presentation on Monday at SWW.

I am not sure what the changes are for this service pack because nothing has been listed on the Fixed SPR’s page yet, so stay tuned there to see what was so important to deserve a .1 service pack.

If you are ready and want to download SolidWorks 2009 SP2.1 you can go to the Downloads and Updates page in the SolidWorks Customer Portal and get it. Enjoy!

ALSO: Stay tuned right here as I am hoping to get the chance to write up about what you can expect to see here at RockSolid Perspective during next week’s SolidWorks WORLD conference. My hope is that I can write something up on my flight to Orlando tomorrow morning. STAY TUNED!

As I posted yesterday, SolidWorks Corp. posted the full download of SolidWorks 2009 sp2.0 to its Downloads page of the SolidWorks Customer Portal. Soon after I posted that I began my download and noticed that my download size (2.2 GB) seemed a lot bigger than what the discussion on Twitter was. Not too long later I received an email from SolidWorks. It read as follows:

Cannot Upgrade SP2 EV to SP2 Full. Due to changes made in SP2 Full, the SP2 EV version cannot be upgraded to SP2 Full version. If you have installed 2009 SolidWorks SP2.0 EV, you must uninstall it before installing 2009 SP2.0. Once 2009 SP2.0 EV is uninstalled, you can proceed by either:
Upgrading an existing SolidWorks 2009 SP0 or SP1.0 installation, a full download of 2009 SP2.0. Best regards, SolidWorks Corporation

So, if you have been running the early visibility release of SolidWorks 2009 sp2.0 you will have to completely uninstall it before you can install the full release of it. This is a nice detail to know before you begin the download. One thing that I did notice also when downloading SolidWorks 2009 sp2.0 (after I uninstalled SolidWorks 2009 sp2.0 EV) it did not recognize my serial number from the previous version as it normally does, so make sure you have that handy when you are installing SolidWorks 2009 sp2.0.

SolidWorks today posted the full release download of SolidWorks 2009 SP2.0 on it Downloads page of the SolidWorks Customer Portal. All you need is an active subscription service and a customer portal login and it is all yours. For many companies service pack 2 is around the time that they go ahead and roll out the latest version of SolidWorks to their company. That means that your time to shine is now.

I am going to give you a little bit of advice, take it for what it’s worth. You may have read some posts about people having troubles with SolidWorks 2009. I personally have not had any crashing troubles or anything of the such. I have however had some quirky things with Microsoft Office 2007 since I downloaded SolidWorks 2009 but I have not pin pointed it to anything SolidWorks. I feel that I am getting closer and if I come up with what was causing the crashes I will post it right here. Back to my main point, I think SolidWorks 2009 is definitely worth the download so go get it now and roll it out. I think that you will be happy that you did!

To find a list of what was corrected in service pack 2.0 you can find it here.

Just in time for Christmas! Yesterday, SolidWorks Corp. released the early visibility of SolidWorks 2009 SP2.0. You can download it from the customer portal as long as you are signed up for access to the early visibility program in you SolidWorks Customer Portal profile. If you are having any troubles seeing the EV download in the Customer Portal you might want to check out the post that I did when SolidWorks 2009 SP1.0 EV came out. You can expect the normal release of SolidWorks 2009 SP2.0 about 2 weeks from now.

To download this new release you can get it from the Downloads and Updates section of the SolidWorks Customer Portal.

Keep an eye on the Fixed SPR’s page for a list of the items changed in SolidWorks 2009 SP2.0. NOTE: It had not been published at the time of this post.

Today SolidWorks released SP1.0 of SolidWorks 2009. It is available for all subscription customers through the SolidWorks Customer Portal in the Downloads & Updates section.

If you would like to see what the changes are for SP1.0 you can check them out here on the Fixed SPRs page.

HAPPY DOWNLOADING!

Yesterday I posted that SolidWorks 2009 SP1.0 EV was live but some users were unable to access it or even see it on their Downloads and Updates page. I got an update today through a comment from Steve R. (THANK YOU VERY MUCH!) about how to fix it. Below is his comment:

“I had the same problem, so I contacted Customer Support. What I had to do was basically re-register for the EV program, which is more than just selecting the “Notify me for EV access.” They referred me to Knowledge Base solutions S-028528 and S-028529. Once I did that, the EV downloads were visible.”

So here is what you have to do. Follow this link to access the Early Visibility program page. From there you will want to click the “Click here to sign up for access to this program” link and you will be taken to a page that allows you to sign up for it. Once you have filled out your information and click the register button you will have access to the Early Visibility downloads through the Downloads and Updates page in the SolidWorks Customer Portal.

I am not sure what happened here because I have always been signed up before but it seems as if some of the EV accounts got deleted at some point, possibly during the redesign of the SolidWorks website.

Hope this works for everyone!