Concurrent use of SWX 06 and 07

I posted a message along these lines a couple of hours ago and it has
never appeared. I say this to explain just in case it does!

Anyway, I have various models in SWX 06. I want to install 07 but need
to make sure that older projects remain associated with earlier
versions of SWX. That is to say that I don't want to accidently allow
conversion with no way back. If I did, I couldn't then provide the
files to my customer with an earlier version of SWX. I am sure you
get the idea and in any case I doubt that my need is unique. Not
forgetting that some parts could be common to various projects.

What is the best way of dealing with this?

Of course, non of this would be relevent if later files were backwards
compatible!

Thanks in advance,

F

 

How much modification of the old files will you need? Could you make
the 06 files read-only?

 

The problem is when I "screw up" and get in a hurry and overwrite a
critical file. Then I'm in trouble.

CPUs are cheap, and I always have a spare hard drive or box, & hence I
just decided to put different releases on different computers (laptops
in my case). The additional reason is as follows because of "no way
back":

Right now I have a key critical mold cavity inserts from a tool vendor
in SWks 2007. I don't consider 2007 release ready for me, but I have
to open those files and work on them. Hence I will use another PC to
run 2007, and I can keep 2006 open on the other machine and I will
duplicate the key critical parts manually back into SWks 2006 so I can
keep on developing the products.

I do know from reading prior years posts that if you put two Swks
versions on the same machine, you can get funny things happening
(wrong) with Toolbox. Might search for prior messages on that.

SolidWorks & Computers are supposed to minimize ROTE TIME WASTING
B.S. This non-backward compatibility is yucky.

I would vote for SWks to consider a translator that allowed a part in
Swks 2007 to be SavedAs with ONLY 2006 FEATURES, and maybe options on
how to translate 2007 features into 2006. I will bet that 99% of
prismatic construction in 2007 is NO DIFFERENT than 2006.

How about it guys? Is this worth peppering SWks with?

Bo

 

OK, there is one more way for simpler parts that may work.

Save As into ParaSolid format (be sure to go back to earlier parasolid
version) in 2007. Open the Parasolid in 2006 and then use the Feature
Recognition Utility to recreate simple features.

Bo

 

Bo,

The toolbox problems with running multiple versions has to do with how you
install the seperate versions. Never go with the default install locations.
I specify seperate folders, off the root (not programs directory), on my "D"
drive for each version. The important part of the install is the Solidworks
"data" location. This is where your toolbox stuff lives. You don't want two
versions to share it. Make them seperate as well.

You'll also want to immediatly change the "tools-options-file locations" on
the new version. New versions allways install with these things (like
..sldmat material file) pointing to the locations in the last of the previous
installations. Once you change these, you're running two isolated
installations. I've been doing this for years with no problems. I've had as
many as four versions installed at once, and no problems.


Mark