Looking for seat of SW

"Does anyone have any unused / older versions available?"

The SolidWorks software agreement, that you agree to when you purchase SolidWorks, prohibits this.

Try hiring a SolidWorks Consultant for a project, and you night see how a productivity increase will pay for the software quickly(R.O.I.).

Or, consider Alibre 3-D software.

Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell

You might find a seat, but bear in mind that SW will probably not honor it which means that if you want to upgrade, purchase subscription. As Devon has noted you will probably be in violation of the EULA.

If your office doesn't see the value in paying for SW then that is where you should be spending your effort. If you are not up to it see if they want to talk to a VAR. If you obtain a seat on the cheap either through pirated software or thinking you have bought someone's license and your office later sees how wonderful it is and want's to get more seats you may end up with a lot of egg on your face or worse. Since SW is not backward compatible such a situation may turn up sooner than you think.

If you produce work with such a seat bear in mind that there is enough information stored in a SW file to point the finger back at you should SW find out and want to "straighten things out".

The legal way to buy a used seat is to buy the company that owns it.

Hmmm, I am curious?

Is it that you want just to do hobby CAD, and 3D solids doesn't offer your employer much advantage?

Improvements in speed of getting work out and the accuracy and quality of the design work can often pay for SolidWorks on one serious project, in quality, numbers of prototypes needed, & rework savings.

Then repair, brochure, user instructions and flyer CAD images makes SolidWorks even MORE valuable.

You state:

"If you produce work with such a seat bear in mind that there is enough

information stored in a SW file to point the finger back at you should SW find out and want to "straighten things out"

My company of course isnt using pirated software (we have 30 floating licenses), but this comment is very interesting. What information are you talking about specifically? Can this information be accessed by anyone, or just SolidWorks with a special program?

Where are you located?

Don't know about SW specifically, but Unigraphics can detect if a file came from a system with a pirated license and cause errors when you try to manipulate the data on your legal system. There is a lot of information contained in a CAD file that isn't model related; user id, machine node name, IP address, domain, etc.

Sounds like a scare tactic to me.