Solidworks Corporate is Anyone There?

I have seen over time how we all are amazed and frustrated by the lack of
response by Solidworks Corporate on serious issues affecting the software. I
know that the VAR's reading this are thinking that's why we are here. The
problem is i think the VAR's are having a hard time getting info. A VAR
should be there to help you solve a design issue or how to do this, or get
the software to do that; type of issues. Solidworks Corporate should be
involved in communicating issues involving service packs, bugs, and overall
direction of changes wanted or needed. I get the feeling the corporate guys
feel like gods on Olympus and just watch us all beat our heads along with
the VAR's till we try to figure out solutions without little or no help from
them.

 

I agree they really need to do more communicating with users directly.
after the sp disappeared a small statement should have been posted saying
for example-

SW have identified late issues with sp2 and are withdrawing it from the
available downloads. We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers. We
hope to have a sp 2.1 out by ---

things like this shouldn't be hard to say when you have 250,000 customers
waiting.

 

They did post this

Please note: SolidWorks Service Pack 2.0 has been temporarily removed from
the web to correct an issue with the PDF translator (SPR 201165).

At least they informed you and us, to why they pulled it.

Regards,
Scott

 

ok, I haven't been there for a few days -there was nothing there before.

 

It's true Scott, it took a day for the explanation to appear. I was waiting
for SP2.0 before we would even try 2004 and I downloaded it as soon as it
appeared. I merely found it by accident, checking for it a couple times a
day to see if we could try 2004 yet. A few hours after I downloaded, it was
gone. The next day the explanation appeared.

More importantly than the explanation, it never should have been released.
(but then again, neither should the bluebeam stuff, or the cosmos pretend
stuff, or the switch away from lightworks, or the countless other things
that have resulted in a slower, less stable system in the past 12 months.
ok, soapbox off).



- Eddy

 

They've also pulled the news item announcing SP2.0.

<sigh>

--nick e.

 

Probably because the PDF problem wasn't the only one...

 

I thought i wasn't the only one who felt SW Corp. was terrible at connecting
with there customers.

 

As much as people bash them, Autodesk has people manning the Inventor
newsgroup full time.

Cole

 

I've mentioned this in another posting's thread; however, in my view,
the PDF "problem" couldn't be the only reason SP2 was pulled.

The only glitch I've run into with the PDF writer (in both 2003 and
2004) has been with users who forgot to disable virus protection
before the installation.

A reinstallation (with anti-virus turned off) fixed the PDF add-in in
both seats of SolidWorks - one under Windows 2000 Pro and another
under XP.

Sure the "Read This First!" sheet recommends turning off anti-virus
software, but (hello SolidWorks) what is SO difficult about adding a
prompting dialog box to remind the user during actual installation?!
How many users do you think carefully refer to the "Read This First!"
when applying a service pack, or even prior to initial installation
for that matter.

Per O. Hoel
_________________________________________________________

 

Indeed, I think the pressures of a division president to give
"guarantees" to the corporate parent of releases, seats, & $s from
Solidworks leads to a "get the damn SP out, and we can issue another
SP next month..." attitude, copying what some say Microsoft does
(though maybe not monthly).

Productivity, and long term stability without constant relearning and
retraining is a "MUST HAVE" to be productive for me.

I have avoided upgrading my main computer for nearly four years (3
yrs for my SWks CPU), avoided all the hardware upgrades and OS
upgrades, because "It just works." All my daily work is on a Mac
PowerBook G3/500mhz and I have zero downtime. I will move to OSX
permanently when a G5 PowerBook arrives that is good, but all the
interim upgrades were time wasters in my opinion (4th release of OSX
is now great, & I didn't waste time on 10.0, 10.1, 10.2). I do not
push the horsepower limits of my Mac with mega-files, so it does
everything it needs to do.

I am tempted to not subscribe to SolidWorks anymore because relearning
on a yearly basis is very unproductive, and that doesn't count dealing
with early release issues. My other CAD programs I use have major
upgrades at most every 2-3 years.

I wish the relentless mandates to observe "yearly" major release would
disappear, as they are truly a business desire for Dessault, not a
productive fact for end users of SWks.

I think users & corporations are going to revolt, though rather
quietly, and still know of one Japanese medical company that is on
SWks 99. It just works for them.

Bo

 

Per

AV (Panda Ti) was turned off (well, as much as possible without
de-installing it - it leaves various bits and bobs running unkillably in the
background all of the time) so this probably wasn't an issue in my case.

Anyways, the x-ref surface registration I mentioned in another thread, and
the other types of surfacing related funny business that Paul S bangs on
about, and that I now witness, are enough for me to revert to SP0 -
thankfully we're still on 2003SP5.1* for deliverables at the moment, and I'm
really just on a period of extended testing with 2004...

Chris

*anyone out there noticed a nasty and rather sporadic issue with equations
failing to execute in sp5.1?

 

Productivity, and long term stability without constant relearning and

Interestingly enough I've just spent the best part of November and December
trying to get my brand-spanking-new home PC (Athlon XP2600+, VP560, 1024MB,
XP Pro etc) to work - SW2004 perfomance issues causing me to donate the PIII
to a friend. I've blamed everything from M$ hotfixes, AV, SW installations,
a crappy vendor OS installation and the VP560 for random crashing. Turns
out that I had some fried memory and an OEM heatsink that would wander off
center after a few days, causing the Athlon to get a bit toasty...

Finally it's stable (with Solidworks 2003 running!), even if I can't hear
myself think properly with the new Thermaltake fan...

 

Chris,

I'd suggest the Zalman CNPS7000A-AlCu fan, nice and quiet!!
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnps7000a-alcu.htm

And if you need more cooling, the heavier Cu version..
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnps7000a-cu.htm

...

 

Hey now,.. it's all tru,.. tru I tell ya, it's all tru! 8^)

...

 

hence my firm belief that SW fscked something up really bad that no one's
noticed yet. Small installed user-base and all that.

besides, how fragging long can it take to fix PDF printing and re-release
the SP?

it's not like they _test_ it or anything....

-nick e.

 

Yep, I've been drooling over the pictures of those! Think it might be a bit
of a squeeze inside the box, though.

Think I'll wait till next month's paycheck...

Chris

 

Yeah and they eliminate threads like these. j/k, but possibly true. There is
still a forum on SolidWorks website.
http://forum.solidworks.com/swforum/logon.asp
But, I'm not sure if you'll get any more SW involvement than here.

Who has the most seats of SW on maintenance? I think I'm gonna start sending
my bug complaints and ERs over to them. Any takers?

BTW- PDF couldn't have been the only issue with SP2.0. It's been several
days now and nothing has been posted. And if it was just PDF then why not
keep 2.0 up there and deliver 2.1 later? So what is it now? We have to live
with all the issues that were addressed in 2.0 until after SW World? Utter
BS.

Maybe they'll shortly release SW 2005 so they have 11 months to get it
right....

Welcome to Beta Testing boys! "Official Release" and "SP0.0" are all just
marketing BS.

 

It will get to the point where they will tell you that the AV has to
be uninstalled. I had Intergraph tell me that once with a copy of
Smart Sketch that wouldn't fully install.

Chris

 

sure it is.

This only means that their marketing contract with Bluebeam is more
important than real issues the users have.

everybody made PDF's somehow before 2004 came out. WTF is is suddenly so
important that they have to pull the SP?

--nick e.