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!

Above is the email that I received yesterday informing me that SolidWorks 2009 SP1.0 EV went live which you can download in the Downloads and Updates page inside of the SolidWorks Customer Portal. However, there is 1 small problem! When I went to the Download page I could find no sign of SolidWorks 2009 SP1.0 EV. At first I figured that it just wasn’t posted yet (sometimes the press releases are out before the downloads) but when I asked Mike Puckett and Lou Gallo on Twitter whether it was there or not and they both said that it was. Brian McElyea also said that he could NOT find it anywhere on the Download page. Worse yet, I don’t have the “Sign up for EV’ link either that it talks about in the email above in the 2nd paragraph. I tried it again this morning on my work machine and it was nowhere to be found there either. I have cleaned all of my cookies, cache and browsing history and still no luck.

So this morning I sent an email to SolidWorks informing them of what I was running into. Hopefully someone can figure out what is going on and I will post an update on here for everyone else that is encountering this same problem.

If you would like to receive an email informing you of Early Visibility go to the “My Profile” link in the Customer Portal and then check the box next to “Notify me for EV (Early Visibility) access”. See screen shots below.

For all of you who are unable to upgrade to SolidWorks 2009 at the current time you can at least upgrade to SolidWorks 2008 SP5.0 which went live today in the SolidWorks Customer Portal.

To download it go to the Download and Updates page found here.

To find out what was updated or changed in SP5.0 click here.

SolidWorks Corp. today released SolidWorks 2009 SP0 for public consumption.  I have heard a lot of buzz about companies going to SP0 right away instead of waiting for SP1 or SP2.  I have done some beta testing and also have used Pre Release 1 & 2 and it IS all it is made out to be.

Go check it out for yourself by downloading it here.  Just be sure to have a implementation plan in place before just downloading it on 1 system and have others still designing in SolidWorks 2008.

Stay tuned for more coverage on SolidWorks 2009 and suggestions for implementing it.

Well according to the the SolidWorks Express newsletter I just received it looks as if SolidWorks 2009 Pre-Release 1 will be going live today.  Whether you have participated in this years beta program or are just ready to start looking at the next release it looks like you will be able to download it today.

If you are not ready to download the software but are curious as to what SolidWorks 2009 will look like and have to offer you can check out the blogs below to see will all be included in the next software release.

Gabi Jack - Gabi Jack’s Blog

Josh Mings - SolidSmack

Matt Lombard - Matt Writes

Mike Puckett - Mike Puckett’s

Ricky Jordan - Ricky Jordan’s Blog

And I am sure many more to come.  Be sure to watch the rest of the “Blog Squad” sites for an inside sneak peak at SolidWorks 2009.

To download SolidWorks 2009 Pre-Release 1 visit the Downloads and Updates page in the SolidWorks Customer Portal.  Just as a side note, unless you have better luck than me download the file the old fashioned way by doing individual downloads to your desktop or network drive and then install the software from there.  The SolidWorks Installation Manager never seems to work just right for me so this is always my plan of attack.  Have fun!

SolidWorks today officially went live with SolidWorks 2008 SP4. For all of you that have been waiting for the stablest of stable service packs for this years release of the software this may just be what you have been waiting for. I have personally been running the Early Visibility version of SP4 since the day that it came out and have not personally had any problems with it. Now don’t take this as the end of all discussions on it but I personally have not experienced any major issues.

If you are ready to take that step and want to download this service pack you can access it from the Downloads and Update section inside the SolidWorks Customer Portal.

If you are already running a version of the 2008 software you can decide for yourself if there are necessary updates included in this service pack to make it worth your while. To find out what has been added, changed or removed this time around head on over to the Fixed SPR’s page and see the list of changes.

And finally if you still aren’t sure whether to go ahead and download this Service Pack you can check out the SolidWorks 2008 SP4 EV in the SolidWorks Discussions Forums. Keep in mind that some of this stuff may already be updated between the Early Visibility release and the actual Service Pack release.

Please feel free to share any of your own personal feelings about this Service Pack or the Early Visibility release.

SolidWorks 2008 SP4.0 Early Visibility went live today through the Download Center in the SolidWorks Customer Portal. What this usually means is that the actual release of this service pack is roughly 2 weeks away. I heard a rumor from a little birdie at the WMSWUG meeting we held this past week that this service pack is going to be a MUST for anyone that has been experiencing troubles with the previous service packs in the SolidWorks 2008 software. For those of you that have yet to switch to SolidWorks 2008 this may be your opportunity to do so. Be sure to check it out, I am downloading it right now and I will be sure to let you know what I think of this latest piece of the pie. Stay tuned for more to come!
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If you would like to check out what was changed in SolidWorks 2008 SP4.0 you can now look it up at the Service Pack Fixed SPR’s page in the Customer Portal. It looks as if quite a bit of stuff has been changed upon my initial first glance. My initial impression of the EV version is that it seems quicker for some reason. I am not sure if this is the case or if it is a combo of the service pack and Windows XP SP3 but it seems like it to me. Devon Sowell mentioned this week that he had heard reports that the XP service pack allowed SolidWorks to run faster or maybe they incorporated some of the performance upgrades from SolidWorks 2009 to this service pack also. Like I stated before, check it out for yourself and see what you think of it.

SolidWorks 2008 SP4.0 Early Visibility went live today through the Download Center in the SolidWorks Customer Portal. What this usually means is that the actual release of this service pack is roughly 2 weeks away. I heard a rumor from a little birdie at the WMSWUG meeting we held this past week that this service pack is going to be a MUST for anyone that has been experiencing troubles with the previous service packs in the SolidWorks 2008 software. For those of you that have yet to switch to SolidWorks 2008 this may be your opportunity to do so. Be sure to check it out, I am downloading it right now and I will be sure to let you know what I think of this latest piece of the pie. Stay tuned for more to come!

Well here we go again!  Last night SolidWorks released the next sub service pack to version 3.0.  SolidWorks released sp3.1 to the general public but there are no notes yet as to what the changes are for this release.  If you are ready to take on the monster of keeping up with the service pack releases you can download the latest one in the Download Center of the SolidWorks Customer Portal.  But, if you are not ready to download this release yet watch the Service Pack Maintenance Notes page to see if they post what the changes are and if then you can decide if they are important to you or not.

I am currently in the middle of downloading it right now so if I notice any major changes I will be sure to post them right here.