critical hotfix available for photoworks issue!
January 20, 2010 Leave a Comment
In a follow-up to my post yesterday “important solidworks 64bit / photoworks information” SolidWorks has issued a hotfix.
Find the details here!
important solidworks 64bit / photoworks information!
January 19, 2010 1 Comment
If you are currently running SolidWorks 2009 64bit SP 5.0, SolidWorks 2010 64bit SP 1.0, or SolidWorks 2010 64bit SP 2.0 you MUST read this announcement NOW!
NOTE: THIS PROBLEM IS ONLY FOR USERS RUNNING SOLIDWORKS 64BIT (VERSIONS ABOVE) AND USING PHOTOWORKS ON LARGE RENDERINGS!!!
Solution Id:
S-046282
Keyword:
PhotoWorks2
Question:
SolidWorks® and operating system may become unstable after PhotoWorks™ add-in is enabled when SolidWorks® is running and the SolidWorks® process is using more than 2GB of virtual memory. What may cause this?
Answer:
Windows® XP, Vista™, Windows® 7 (64 Bit only) operating systems:
SolidWorks® and operating system may become unstable after PhotoWorks™ add-in is enabled when SolidWorks® is running and the SolidWorks® process is using more than 2GB of virtual memory.
An issue with PhotoWorks™ has been identified where SolidWorks® and the Windows® operating system may become unstable after enabling the PhotoWorks™ add-in within SolidWorks® 2009 SP5 and SolidWorks® 2010 SP1 or later. The issue has been reported to the development team as SPR#535417. If using PhotoWorks™, it is advised to enable the PhotoWorks™ add-in only after first opening a new SolidWorks® session before any files are loaded.
A symptom that this issue may occur is if no PhotoWorks™ Toolbar or menu appears but the Render Manager tab remains shown. If you notice these symptoms, it is strongly advised to end the SolidWorks® session with the “end process” selection from the processes tab of the Windows Task Manager.
You can find more information in the SolidWorks Forums by following these links.
https://forum.solidworks.com/message/138724#138724
https://forum.solidworks.com/message/138670#138670
here’s your chance to influence the software
January 13, 2010 Leave a Comment
Over the last week or so there are a couple of things available for you, the user, to participate in that will possibly influence the next release of SolidWorks. I highly suggest you participate in both of these and let SolidWorks know what you want the software you use everyday to look and feel like.
Rick Chin
Rick, who is the Director of Product Innovation at SolidWorks, and an all around great guy is asking YOU what his next project should be. He is just coming off of working on SolidWorks Sustainability for the past 14 months and he wants to know what you would like to see him begin looking at. You can find all the details of what he is looking for along with a survey by clicking here.
SolidWorks WORLD 2010: The Top Ten List
We have all done it, asked (or screamed) why can’t SolidWorks do this or that. Here is your chance to submit or vote for enhancements that you want. This was a new process last year before SolidWorks WORLD and was a huge success so it is back by popular demand again this year. All you need to do is log in with your SolidWorks Customer Portal user name and password and you can vote until your hearts content.
To begin voting click here.
it’s available, so go and get it! solidworks 2010 sp 2.0
January 12, 2010 Leave a Comment
The service pack has arrived that most companies and CAD Administrators have been waiting for. Last night SolidWorks released service pack 2.0 of SolidWorks 2010. From my personal experience and talking to other users in my region this service pack seems to be the one that most companies wait for before adopting the new release of SolidWorks.
So, with a active subscription it is available for your downloading goodness. Simply go to the Downloads and Updates page of the SolidWorks Customer Portal and get it.
To find out what has been changed in this service pack you can find the release notes here.
To see the complete What’s New in SolidWorks 2010 you can find it on Ricky Jordan’s blog by clicking here. Take note that you can also browse through every What’s New document since SolidWorks 95 by visiting Ricky’s What’s New Guides page.
xbox natal’s impact on cad
January 7, 2010 1 Comment
I do not do very many posts on future technology (I leave that up to Josh over at SolidSmack) but this new technology really caught my attention and made me start thinking. Microsoft is working on a new project called Project Natal that is using similar technology as the Nintendo Wii but expanding it.
What Project Natal offers is similar motion sensing as the Wii but without the remote. This senses your body movements instead on the remotes movements.
This got me thinking, how far away are we from seeing this introduced to CAD. How soon will we be able to walk around our models, while collaborating with people all over the world similar to playing games online on the XBOX or Playstation. CAD packages are already supporting touch interfaces so some of this can’t be that far off can it?
Let me know what you think of this and when you think we will start seeing this kind of stuff in our CAD packages.
To see Project Natal in action check out their videos on their YouTube page.
XBox Natal is scheduled to ship “Holiday 2010” and will supposedly work with all Xbox 360’s.
merry christmas!
December 25, 2009 Leave a Comment
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
May your days be filled with joy as you celebrate during this holiday season!
bump up your rights!
December 15, 2009 2 Comments
In an earlier post I showed you how to run a program in Compatibility mode if you are running Windows 7 or Windows Vista. Today I want to make you aware of another semi hidden feature in the 2 newest operating systems from Windows.
The other day I was struggling to get a SolidWorks Add-in to install correctly. I was installing it off of a DVD so I knew it was not a corrupt download, and it installed on the 3 PC’s that were running Windows XP but not the 1 running Windows Vista or the 1 running Windows 7. Then someone suggested using the “Run as Administrator” option when installing the program. So I did and voila, everything works perfect.
So how do you do this? Simply RMB click on an executable file (.exe) and select the “Run as Administrator” option (see image on left). Try this out if you are struggling with something and see if it fixes your problem.
solidworks world 2010…are you going?
December 11, 2009 8 Comments
Well, personal life has not allowed me to do a series of posts on why you should attend SolidWorks WORLD 2010 (SWW10) but I wanted to take a moment to hopefully help you out.
In these tough economic times every penny is being pinched and every purchase requisition is being gone over with a fine toothed comb. So how are you supposed to convince the powers that be at your company that it is worth sending you across the country for 4 days of nothing but SolidWorks networking and training?
I have created a ROI (return on investment) worksheet that will help you justify the cost depending on how much stuff you learn and how much it will increase your productivity. Feel free to fill out this file, print it off, and hand it in with a proposal to the necessary people at your company. Hopefully this will help them understand that it IS a good investment to send you to Anaheim in January/February.
You can download the file here (Microsoft Excel .xls format).
solidworks & the windows 7 taskbar
December 7, 2009 2 Comments
If you are one of the early adopters of Windows 7 you have probably already fell in love with the new taskbar design. It gives you a built in dock type feature so that you can quickly access and launch your favorite programs.
Well, Darin Grosser, a former AE Model Mania winner, has posted about how to add SolidWorks to the new Windows 7 taskbar AND have it act like the rest of the programs you can add. The problem that he was seeing and that I have seen is that you could add the button to the taskbar but when you clicked it to launch SolidWorks it would open another instance of it instead of launching that icon. To see the correct way to add SolidWorks to the taskbar read his blog post. Follow the link below.
SolidWorks Icon on the Windows 7 Taskbar – DASI Solutions Blog
upgrading solidworks 2009 in windows 7
November 27, 2009 11 Comments
Anna Wood did a blog post about her frustration with SolidWorks 2009 SP 5.0 Not Allowed To Install On Windows 7 w/ SWIM. She later updated her post with how to get it to install using manual downloads from the Customer Portal.
This morning in my attempt to also upgrade to SolidWorks 2009 SP 5.0 on my Windows 7 machine I stumbled across another workaround for this problem.
Windows 7 (and Vista) include a compatibility tool that allows you to run programs for other versions of Windows. The workaround that I came across this morning includes telling the SolidWorks Installation Manager to run in compatibility mode for Windows Vista. To activate this option you need to go to Start > All Programs > SolidWorks Installation Manager > Check For Updates.
Once you are to this point RMB click on Check For Updates and select Properties. This will open up another window like the image below. Click on the Compatibility tab and in the Compatibilty mode box check the box by Run this program in compatibility mode for and then select Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) from the drop down list. I imagine that the other option for Windows XP and Windows Vista would work as well for this but I used the Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) setting.
Once you are finished, click Apply and you are all set to go to download the SolidWorks 2009 SP 5.0 upgrade.
