i mean, who asked for this? why our cad software is becoming worse than the most commercial office suites and commonly used software? not even m$ goes on releasing so often --and so in advance-- new office(s) for windows, then i wonder why swx corp. (which is supposed to produce software for *real* pros and not for students to copy and pirate it) continues releasing 5 months in advance the new release of its own cad? who asked for a new release, while the actual one is still full of bugs and problems? couldn't they simply add the few new features somebody asked in the actual release *and fix those damned big bugs*? *we are paying for a software and want to use it!* please excuse my french terms like fscking crappy cad software, but we're still waiting to be able to upgrade from swx2004sp3 to something working a little bit better, since people at swx corp. was able to reproduce the working conditions and made us downgrade from sp4 to sp3 because of a major bug still unfixed. now we're able to create new parts and assemblies and to save them, but we keep working with all the known bugs of sp3. and all of this for nearly 8k euros/year. what a deal. just my 2 eurocent (2 more, 2 less...)
The reason you get the new version is because part of the guarntee is that you get 2 major releases a year. if you don't want to upgrade then don't that's your choice. I'm finding SW05 to very stable and i haven't seen many bugs with it yet. That's not to say you won't. Don't complain about the new major version, because it's in the contract you signed when you bought the software. Regards, Scott
Scotty, The myth about a guaranteed 2 major releases per year has been debunked here and there many times. Some VARs used to use this as a sales tool, but there really isn't any guarantee, nor was there ever. There are probably several good reasons for yearly upgrades. Competition is one of course, although I doubt that SolidWorks would stop if the others did - way too many good ideas to just sit on. Secondly, users drive new releases with enhancement requests - we've often been told that 90% of new functionality is requested by users. So you see, it's not right to jump on SolidWorks about this, it's really OUR FAULT. Richard
Gates & Ballmer have botched their own success with software that has become so bloated and the OS which attempts to be all and end all for all hardware configs, that they are now controlled by their own OS monstor which dictates "bigger is better, no matter whether you like it or not Mr. Billy". Slashdot.org today quoted a French article on a Windows study from "Journal du Net "<http://slashdot.org/> that noted 12% of WinXP "sessions" ended in a reboot. Stability, stability, stability...damn it that is all I want. I don't want one more feature that is not thoroughly debugged and tested for 6-12 months by Solidworks on their internal machines. New features do NOT help me get work out TODAY. The CFO @ SolidWorks & Dessault needs to start using SolidWorks to start understanding how buggy software can ruin his week. I didn't even upgrade to SWks 2004 until v4.1, and I am really glad I waited. In fact v4.1 should have bee the official SP1 release (or is it SP0...hard to keep track, they change so often). Guess why all of my computer work other than SolidWorks is NOT on Windows (note written in Safari)? Bo
our problems with parts/assemblies that get corruptec when saving wasn't fixed in 4.1 yet. they told us our feedback arrived late for the fix to be part of sp4.1 and that it should be included in 4.2 or 5.0. if there ever will be one. regards,
we have to. as soon as new releases are released and you call to ask about a misfuncion/crash/problem/misbehaviour, vars --or, at least, ours-- ask one thing: did you install the latest sp? if not, do it and call us again just after having done it. then upgrading is a must, not a choice. if it was my choice, we were still working with swx2003, but we couldn't do it because support is discontinued by our var (and i don't know by swx corp., that gives our var very precise indications on what to do). i'm glad if you did, but is it so different from 04 that they *had to* call it another way? couldn't they "simply" fix 04 problems? does it do *really useful* new things? you cannot download sp's if you don't subscribe with swx. and you cannot keep and older version if you have a subscription because support requires you to install the latest sp: what should we do? regards,
I do still help users that are using older versions of SW and are still on support. It's alot harder to support those people because of that. But they are a paying Customer. If something is fixed or is a function in a later SP or major version, then I suggest they upgrade. If they call and we work on a file together and they are on a earlier SP and it works for me, then I suggest they upgrade. It's not hte first thing I ask "Whether they upgraged or not" and then if they didn't to, and call me back after that. If you ask me that's a chicken shit way out. It's VAR's like that, that Piss off it's Customers and give SW some negative feedback. Try looking for a different VAR in your area. Tha'ts what I would start out doing. I don't understand this question? They are still working on it - SP4.2 will be out soon. It's suppose to fix some instability issues.... At least let's hope it does - I for one am not seeing instabilty Does what do really useful things new things? I think ever version of SW does useful things. It may not be what you and I do every day but it does do useful things because a bunch of customers asked for those Enhancements. I always love it when I see somethign I turned in years ago finally gets put in. I think of it as "They needed this years ago, but at least it made it!" I have found SW04 to be very stable, It has it does have it fair share of problems, but I have seen a version yet that doesn't. There is always that one person that has more trouble out of it then another. I think Paul S. Had the most trouble out of SW03 last year. Maybe this your year... I hope not though! As far as I know Support doesn't require you to install, but it does get a lot harder to support users that are 2-3 versions back. Plus as the Versions grow so does the list of fixed SPR's. Yes there is some new functionality, but They also fix a lot of bugs. Unfortnatly if the bugs you're seeing are not a popular one then it chances of getting fixed fast are slim to none. That's why posting your problems out here and seeing if we can recreate it is a good to do. Because maybe those of us out here will call into Our VAR's explain it to them and have them recreate it. VAR's will take it from there and send it to SW. Unless we have a VAR like you have "Gianni".
On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 07:47:01 -0500, "Scott" [...] your way is better than the average here in italy. actually in my country you never find more than 1 var in every area because in this way there is no competition between them. everyone has his own areas and nobody disturbs. when we bought the first release, in late '98, we asked the price to 2 different var's and the second didn't even reply us "because we already had a price: there cannot be any difference". we do, but we're still running sp3.0. sure they do. but wouldn't be more useful if somebody told those customers they're often working in a crazy way and asking for crazy things to solve problems that *should* be trated otherwise? i'm referring, for example, about the ability of 2004 to create an assembly and treat/save it as a part, with beads and whatever else. instead of spending hundreds (i guess) of man-hours on developing such an "enhancement" (born to let customers work as they *shouldn't*, because every part/piece/whatever that goes through warehouse, somebody should have taught them to give every part a name and/or a id, so who's working with/on the parts *after* the technical office has printed drawings know how to call parts and where to put them --and what to do with them--. i can't see the point to produce things without a name. there would be 2 more millions things to say about this, but unfortunately my english is too poor for me to explain everything. i hope i let you understand at least something of what i meant. thank you: i'll try to regards.
I love Slashdot but there are lies damn lies and statistics. XP hardly ever crashes (Or W2K). Now if you have a Linux box, and it has 300 days of uptime, but it crashes once. Does that mean that 100% of Linux "sessions" ended in a crash ? Hmm ... your not in the business of selling software ? There are two struggles 1. features vs fixes 2. individual fixes vs package fixes New customers need features. To keep old customers as well as get a good reputation you need fixes as well as features. Now lets say you have tracked down a bug and fixed it. Do you send out a patch ? or do you wait until a whole bunch of bugs is fixed ? Each time you patch out in the real world, you need resources. Microsoft has a good system were they have an automated patch system on a case by case basis. A service pack comes out every now and never. Windows is very stable, based on a myriad of hardware platforms. Linux I believe is catching up considering it runs from 386 or worse to old mainframes. Mac stuff run on Mac. And until they went OSX and UNIX based, they were fairly crash prone them self's. One of the most common crashing reasons for SolidWorks are the different graphics cards. Anyway, SolidWorks is not so bad, and they do listen to us users. I can't wait of a stable 2005. I hope they can learn some lessons on how Linux chases bugs and how Microsoft chases bugs. Giorgis
I would agree that 12% of XP sessions end in a reboot. Giorgis, maybe you haven't installed software or service packs on XP (W2k) lately. Even changing screen resolution can result in a reboot. Ending in a reboot can be the result of installing something on XP, not just a crash. Linux folks have the kill nohup option as well as the ability of restarting services instead of rebooting.
