Opening SW2005 parts on SW2004

SW2005 ---> parasolid (.x_b) ---->SW2004

--->FeatureWorks----->Autoequal----->Autodimension.

Pretty cool, hey?

At SWW2003 they talked about having backward compatibility. Haven't seen it yet though.

Welcome to the wonderful one-way world of Solidworks that Doubly shoots in the foot

1. Once upgraded to next version eg swks 2005 you are stuck (even if its flaky at first) &
2. Try sending a file to a colleauge who hasn't upgraded yet all he gets is dumb solids - no features, no parametrics, no use !! ..... Bang Bang !!

Imagine if each new release of word made .doc files that couldn't be opened and edited by the very latest version of word ...... Solidworks stop dragging your heals on this ...... all it needs is 'save as' last version.

MicroSoft doesn't change the alphabet or dictionary every time a new version of Word comes out either. That makes it easier.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (Tal) wrote in news:6bd1fc40.0502250805.415f504 @posting.google.com:

Planned obsolescence - Solidworks forces us to keep up. Keep up with your clients or you're Fu???ed Keep up with your suppliers or you're Fu???ed

All it takes is one customer or supplier to upgrade and you have to follow

Keep buying the newest version or you're Fu???ed

SolidWorks has a guaranteed revinew stream

Pretty good business plan.

Will

ROTFLMAO!!!

It's true man,... bend over and take it!!

BTW, SW2005 is slow as dog sh#@!

..

" snipped-for-privacy@carrollhealthcare.com" wrote:

you have been rather silent about 05 thus far Paul...seems like I have been the only one getting wound up lately... ;o)

Sorry Paul, I just can't believe that SW is that slow. The DS in my backyard doesn't move at all. At SWW they had a big presentation listing all the performance gains SW has seen over the years.

Any examples to the contrary?

Paul Salvador wrote:

It moves, but like SW, it's too slow for your to notice it moving. Carefully note the location and size of your DS. Check a couple of years later and you will see that there are no piles where you had them noted. If it's not there, it must have moved.

I've only gone to one SWW, in 2000. There was a big presentation on how fast the new version was going to be. When I got the software, I never noticed any improvement. From other people's comments, the same seems to happen every year.

I wish I had time to present some examples. I would like to reload SW98+, build some representative parts and assemblies, then load each year's new SW, convert the parts, and note load, rebuild and save times, as well as file sizes.

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"

I actually did that. About 2-5% slower each year and sometimes between SPs.

7 releases

Take your pick or somewhere in between.

Actuall DS has one advantage. If you watch over the year the grass will grow faster. Maybe that is what they are measuring?

If you think carefully about what they represented at SWW it was performance features, not benchmark or measured results. This suggests there is a widening gap between what they say the software does and what it actually does. After all, if what they said was true you could run a 5,000 part assembly on a 486 by now.

SolidWorks recently announced they have developed free software too allow backwards compatibility within AutoCAD going back to version 2.0 or something! Yet they cannot provide backwards capability within their own software. It is my hope that AutoDesk comes back with their own version of backwards capability for SolidWorks! And why doesn't SW support last years version to fix unresolved problems? How is not improving existing software faster, easier to use fit into their lip service of reduce design time, faster to market and all the other advertisement BS. Time for a new CAD player hungry enough to give users what they want. SW used to be that company but no longer. They can keep their hats, bags, spoons, napkins and other cheap bribes. Spend the money on improving and fixing the software and people will buy.

Harsh, but true Kman

Lack of backwards compatibility has always been blamed on the data structures not being compatible from one release to the next. Back in my Amiga days Commodore had solved that problem for their image files. You could literally put anything in them kind of like structured storage. If your software (yes software) could not read some of the information in the file it didn't matter, it would read in what it could. So what is in a SW file? Feature tree information, a parasolid, display list, custom properties and maybe a few other things. The parasolid is obviously backward compatible. So are the custom properties and the other things. It is the feature tree stuff that is my guess at what causes difficulties. There has to be a way to deal with this in some modular fashion that would allow moving back with the caveat that something might get lost. One way would be to embed the handler for the new capability in the file kind of like eDrawings does.

"At SWW they had a big presentation..."

wow. do you really believe everything 'THEY' tell you? instead of asking for examples, did you think to do a test yourself?

bob z.

bob z. agrees wholeheartedly with the above. what the ...? why can't they just save?!?!? save something?!?!? just do it! or like bob z.'s T-SHIRT from the Miller Brewery - JUST DID IT.

oh yeah, bob z. is /keepin it REAL/ :~)>

bob z.

The files are not backwardly compatible by design. This is done for marketing reasons, so you will pay for maintenance and upgrades. They want your money foremost.

I'm no programmer, however, it doesn't take a genius to understand backwards capability is feasible, though it may take one to do it. I would agree with Tiger's comment, their primary strategy is to force customers to pay for upgrades every year. SW management tactics have become bloated like their software. Are there any other programmer types out there that might have an understanding why it is so difficult to go backwards?

I actually appreciate the fact SW has given users backwards capability within AutoCAD. It is obvious they have done this for selfish reasons, to further erode the AutoCAD market by taking away another reason for AutoCAD users to upgrade their software. Competition is good, hope there are other CAD companies out there who will reciprocate to the benefit of users.

Commodore, Amiga! Long ago However, my first computer was a Tandy TRS-80 (8K ram) 1977 complete with small black and white TV screen, computer combination keyboard and tape recorder for read/write. The BASIC training manual (User's Manual for Level

Kman