SP 4 available,,,won't install

Everyone,

Just downloaded SP4, get message "can't access Bla-bla-bla" on original disk
1.

Everything "IS" as it should be. The disk is the original, and it's in the
right drive. Browse to the file and click on it,,,same message. What a POS


Mark

 

Operating system? SP? etc.

 

Paul,

WIN2K SP4

Just tried it at home,,,,same thing

Mark

 

Working with Windows can be a real pain when things are reflected like
that.

As a pure unadulterated side note from Microsoft, they formally
announced to all their business customers as of last week that they are
stopping all support of Win2000.

One aquaintence of mine was involved in programming industrial
applications and used Windows on the strength of promises from
Microsoft to provide industrial strength solutions. Within 2 years my
friend's Fortune 500 customers were asking what OS they were going to
move to next.

The only viable alternative at that point was Unix, and it still is the
only reliable, safe, strong choice.

Bo

 

Bonobo,

Agreed,

MS doesn't give technical computing "thought one" when designing their
"flavor of the month OS's". With XP64 here, and Longhorn just around the
corner it's goin to be a real mess soon. The thing I find hilarious is that
allot of poeple really think it's going to be better, cracks me up. XP64
will likely be slower, and quirkier. Longhorn will be a resource gobbling
pig for sure. Hardware isn't moving fast enough to keep up, and now you have
all new sets of problems to deal with. I would think it would be cheaper for
SW to port to Linux rather than keep up with all this crap. One things for
sure, they'd get allot more service life from Linux than anything MS offers.
There's going to come a time, in the next year and a half or so, when the
SW-MS situation gets so bad, folks will do anything just to be able to get
work done again. This is when Pro-E-Linux will start taking off big time.
Personally, I'll probably switch as soon as they have a fully functioning,
stable port. They're in no hurry now, but they'll see the writing on the
wall.

I've been doing CAD for 20 years. I've seen alot of really excellent
applications (Applicon, Euclid, and others) fade away or die all together
for many different reasons. Of all of them, complacency is the biggest
killer. SW has this in abundance.


Regards

Mark

 

'Of all of them, complacency is the biggest killer. SW has this in
abundance'.

Mark,
Not meaning to hijack this thread but my take on this is that they are not
so much complacent as self limited by the belief that the program is part of
the mid range/level mainstream and that therefore to continue to have tools
of similar capability to the other 2 offerings is nothing more than they
need do....a sort of identity problem or self defeating conformity rather
than being symptomatic of undue comfort.
To my mind there is an unwillingness to truly extend the ability of the
program because it steps on the toes of 3rd party add-ons and also because
Catia should not be undermined. If there was a free hand to develop the
program as users desire - open source Blender is an example that comes to
mind - SW would be innovating and moving ahead and certainly not afraid to
gut and redo the parts that don't work well. Support for Linux would be
likely to come about and they would be taking on ProE.
Presently they spend too much time covering bases with their perceived
competition and in seeking to be pretty and user friendly underestimate
users technical ability and aspirations. They cannot just top out at a level
that will do enough to get by. If they don't set their sights on the next
rung the product is going to stagnate and be bypassed. No amount of fluff
will disguise inability to do the job and do it efficiently.
As an example of this SW simply doesn't cut it for ID requirements now. The
surface tools are not up to developing products of a quality necessary to
compete globally for the consumers dollar. Flex and deform are not tools for
serious work, were never were going to be, and SW should not pretend they
are and promote their use. Not even in passing as being useful for quick
shape exploration.
Hopefully they will push pass this mentality or purge the people keeping the
lid on progress. Having said that they still have to get a hold of the SP
troubles because they can't afford to offside too many people who just need
the thing to work.

neil

 

As of June Win2k is not supported. Time to change (note I did not say
upgrade) to XP. SW probably did not test installation on Win2k and
they probably won't support it. Yet another excuse not to provide
support.

Just one question. Did you try a clean install and then jumping from
SP0 to SP4?

 

A caution: I have had CDs from SolidWorks which flaked out or didn't
work. I suspect all it takes is one bad bit due to a scratch or who
knows what.

My VAR replaced the bad CD with a new set instantly.

Bo

 

Don't even think of doing ANYTHING with your 'old' Win2K hard drive.
Keep it as an archive.

Buy a new hard drive and load WinXP with all the latest SP and
Updaters. Chances are your MSOffice Pro will install on Win2000 & Win
XP as mine does.

Bo Clawson

 

JK,

Solidworks will be supporting Win2K "through" SW2006, at Win2K SP4.


Mark

 

I considered staying with Win2000 for suggested speed increases, but
one final tidbit made me switch.

The final piece was the ease of transferring small files out side of
the normal network methods (Ethernet, FireWire, WiFi).

BlueTooth file transfers basically eliminate my need to interfere with
other running operations or to do USB Key or other transfer methods for
all but large files.

 

Same thing here, going 3.0 to 4.0

Win XP SP 2

Eric

 

It would be ironic if the O/S situation put Pro-E more in the hunt again at
the
expense of Solidworks.
Going to Windows seemed like a good idea not too many years ago.
Bill

 

The only thing I can think of is there might be a Window update which
has something SolidWorks needs, if indeed the SWks CDs are OK.

I upgraded EVERYTHING on Windows XP OS & Hardware side before
Installing SWks 2005 SP0 from CD.

The later 3.1 and 4.0 SWks SPs installed and worked just fine, with
requisite insertion of CD #1, & #2.

Bo

 

Roland,

Yep, that was my message and error.

Turns out, my 2005 wouldn't uninstall either !!!! Gave an error saying it
wasn't a valid windows install WTF !!!!

I ended up having to uninstall it manually by deleting the folders and
editing the registry, what a PITA !!! SW scatters entries all over the
registry, including HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Most of these are removed with normal
uninstall.

Just LUUUUUUUV that "Windows Installer". It's Sooooo much "BETTER" than
Install Shield isn't it folks ??????

Anyway, took most of a day, but I got it cleaned out and reinstalled.

Now I've found that SP4 has a bunch of new bugs (mate icon doesn't always
work, and a bunch of other mate weirdness) and I wish I'd stayed where I was


Mark

 

My advice wait for SP4.1 on this one!

I installed SP4.0EV and now SP4.0 it did fix some of the disappearing
drawing issues, which was the main reason I installed it as I couldn't
batch print anything reliably. There is hell of a lot of fixes in this
SP (They are bound to stuff up with this many fixes)

Just checked on the number of SPR's "fixed" = Three hundred and forty
one! in SP4.0, I didn't count them just copied them all to excel and
let it count them for me. There were 217 in SP3.0

I was having issues with mates in 4.0ev lots of error flags but no
actual mate errors.

Still having issues with PDMWorks crashing to desktop when "include
drawings" is checked in options. I can check-in all drawings manualy --
a bit of a pain in the ____ but workable. Note I uploaded a 50Mb
assembly and PDMWorks data to SolidWorks support regarding this on the
30 June - with Zero response regarding this since.

So I would advise if your not having too much of an issue with SP3.1
then stick with it. I'm sure SP4.1 or maybe even a 4.2 will come out in
a couple of weeks.


Regards

John Layne