Migrating files

I have successfully opened SW2003 models & drawings with no problems. As far as your opening some files from the network, it's ok as long as you don't save them. A way to prevent that is to make them read-only. Obviously, that won't work if the shared network files you would open do, in fact, need to be modified and saved. However, if they are just reference, such as hardware, purchased parts, etc. just set the attribute so you can't write to them. Then all you have to do is put up with the "conversion" message whenever you open them.

WT

Sooner or later all such would need to be migrated I'd expect. Quite often only one release level is supported for such conversion .. the last one.

Make a total backup of the filesets (not the disks) and set up a machine to do migrations .... try to migrate *everything* on the test machine (using a test copy of the files) to look for errors, problems & issues.

I'd expect that the release notes for each main version would contain notes of such *known* problems. I'd also ask your VAR & SW about any known problems in advance.

Once you know you will have no problems (by doing test migrations of the full set of files) (or have fixed any problems found in the original files) you can probably migrate the entire set safely for live use.

But keep those backups for a few years and the old versions(s) of the CAD software as well.

BTW, You may be amazed by the number of part files you have that you find you don't need ...

Don't forget to also migrate any projects that exist now only on archived tapes or disks .... backups are useless if you later find that you cannot use them.

HTH

I have no experience with 2004, but making sure that old parts, assemblies and drawings translate OK is a real pain. It's not enough to just open the files and look for cherries. You have to do a ctrl-q on each part to force a complete rebuild. If you don't do this, you'll think the parts are OK until you try and edit them, only to find the cherries showing up. Then comes the detective game of figuring out what caused the problems and how to fix them. This can take a long time!

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems