Important SolidWorks Retirement Announcements
As a part of the partner program for publications, I from time to time get special emails from SolidWorks. Today I got one of those emails with some important information that Solidworks users will want to know. This information was not part of a non-disclosure program or marked as such, so I didn’t feel the need to tell you I’ve got some important information which I can’t tell you, which seems like a silly thing for a blog writer to do.
Some of this has been the source of speculation for some time, and these statements from SW clear things up. Clearing things up is a good thing.
1) SolidWorks 2010 will be the last SolidWorks version to support Windows XP. According to the newsletter:
Due to the fact that Microsoft officially retired Window XP in April of this year; SolidWorks 2010 will be the last release to support both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows XP. SolidWorks 2011 (tentative release expected in the fall of 2010) will support Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit versions) only.
2) That goes hand in hand with the second announcement:
SolidWorks will support the new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system as part of its SolidWorks 2010 release (scheduled for October of this year). Right now Microsoft’s published release date for Windows 7 is Oct 22nd. Based on this information the earliest version of SolidWorks 2010 that could support the Windows 7 operating system will be SP1 (tentative release expected in November this year).
Well, that’s neutral news to me, since all of my SolidWorks machines are running Vista, Windows 7, or both. Windows 7 should be an acceptable alternative to XP for most people.
3) And finally, the one that is probably not unexpected, but may cause a bit of a stir is that PhotoWorks is being retired after SolidWorks 2010. PhotoView 360 has been nipping at PhotoWorks heels for a while, and while it does not seem to be ready for prime time at this moment, there is a lot of momentum behind the product, and it is headed in a useful direction. Again to quote:
SolidWorks 2010 will be the last release to include PhotoWorks. In subsequent releases PhotoWorks will not be available and PhotoView 360 will be its functional replacement and the sole photorealistic solution for SolidWorks software.
4) Since we are talking about retirements, SolidWorks 2009 is the last version we will see the Shape featue in. If you look at the FeatureManager of a 2009 part with a Shape feature in the tree, the feature has a yellow triangle with an exclamation point. The message says that Shape will not be in SolidWorks 2010.
I have never been a fan of the Shape feature. It was somewhere in between Dome and Freeform, but never really allowed you to get a shape that I would call “intentional” out of it. Retiring a feature is an extreme step, but I don’t think it is unwarranted in this case.
How about this as a novel idea? How about waiting to release a SW version that is bug-free and stable? Too much to ask?
@Sonicson
Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Have to wait and see, I guess.
@Sonicson
You should try this: http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.php it is 100% bug free, and it is also just free, and small and well it is the best software out there.
@Marijn
Perfect! It’s easy to use, and perfectly intuitive. It doesn’t have anything that you don’t need, and there’s nothing at all to dislike about this software! Thanks for pointing this out!
I think the global collapse is coming soon so I’m going to stock up on baked beans and live in the basement.
I figure on reading and rereading my collection of Whats New pdf and SWW presentations to pass the time..
Every so often I’ll send out a dove to look for green shoots..
When its safe to come out I think I’ll find a new world order.
SW will have transitioned fully to a toy company catering to 5 year old girls and since the dollar will be worth about 10 cents I’ll be able to buy their collection of products at Walmart.
life is not all bad
I wasn’t being sarcastic.
@Sonicson
Well, the problem is that users keep asking it in complete candor, just like you. And SolidWorks keeps insisting that stability and consistency are high on the list every release. And then we get another buggy release. It’s easy to ask the question in sincerity, but I’m pretty jaded by now. I do think they have worked out most of the crashes so the crashes are mostly local issues. But they don’t work out the small bugs, or even some of the not-so-small bugs. So what do you do?
What about photorealistc animation? Did I miss something?
Huh. I’ll bet they just replace the link to PW with a link to PV. Must be more announcements pending on that front. I hope they make PV work inside SW too. Going back and forth to position parts in an assembly is miserable. Although doing assembly animations outside SW would be nice, because the SW mates suck when the parts don’t move and 10x as bad when they do move.
Between PW and Animator, Animator is the one that needs fixed most. Maybe that is happening as a part of this. Modo is reputed to have good animation.
@matt
Buy Inventor?
@Sonicson
Windows XP -> Not supported by Microsoft anymore but yet Solidworks is supposed to still develope the most stable platform from this? Hmmmm…
Windows 7 -> Microsofts latest and the most stable operating system they probably have ever produced thus far… and yet people think this somehow means Solidworks will be less stable than xp?
I don’t follow the logic…..
I recently tried SW2007 on Windows 7. I was unable to get a successful installation. Of course it is an old version on a beta system.
Why not? They at leat have there photo rendering and animation built in.You don’t have to go and pay for it. @Sonicson
We have had excellent results running SolidWorks 2009 on Windows 7. In fact, we moved most of our designers (75 or so) off XP and Vista over to Windows 7 x64. There were some minor bugs that were easy to work around, but our overall experience has been extremely postive. The RTM build was released to Microsoft Enterprise customers on 8/9. It is even better, faster, and more stable than the Release Candidate. Our plan is to deploy Windows 7 as early as next week (regardless of official support from SolidWorks). We have less crashes, faster computers on the same hardware, and more productive designers. Looking forward to it
//JP
@Rick McWilliams
Solidworks 07 will probably not work on 2007 for the same reason that it would not work on Vista. Only 2008 & newer was able to be installed on Vista so I am guess that atleast the same is true for Windows 7.
It will be highly welcome to make it work on OSX!