Solidworks Corporate is Anyone There?

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.
--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

I always "read this first" text message last and then pay the price. They provide us with all kinds of annoying pop up dialogue boxes to use the software yet they don't provide an important notice about anti-virus during installation. SW is clueless, to borrow a phrase I have seen 1001 times on this newsgroup.
Kman

Just for the record, I'm still on SP2 and the Save-as PDF add-in works just fine.
Mike Wilson
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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?

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!! And if you need more cooling, the heavier Cu version.. ..
Chris wrote:

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

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
installations,

Yeah and they eliminate threads like these. j/k, but possibly true. There is still a forum on SolidWorks website. 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.