Solidworks... WTF?!!!!

PLEASE send this to your VAR and make sure your voice gets heard.

For those of you going to SW World, maybe you can get some answers on this. This installation issue is by far the biggest regression I've ever seen in my life in ANY software.

Besides all of what you mentioned, the most annoying 'feature' to SW-WI is the fact that you can't have different service packs installed at the same time like you could with traditional install.

I used to keep the different versions installed for debugging purposes to see if the problem I was having was happening in earlier releases. Now I have to send things to my VAR or post them here to find out.

I'm wondering how the VARs or even SW tech does their troubleshooting now. Do they use different computers or is there a trick I don't know?

Mike Wilson

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I am absolutely shocked at how it can take so MUCH longer to apply a service pack through the Installer than it does to install and configure SolidWorks 2004 in the first place.

What good is the rollback option, for example, when the process often causes certain program options (and third party add-ins) to no longer work properly.

Frankly, I never ran into such difficulty when simply using the Traditional Install method. Sure reverting to an earlier service pack meant reinstalling; however, it was still faster and more reliable than with WI, even if multiple SPacks had to be reapplied. The Windows Installer method only allows for reverting to the previous SP - if a user needs to go back further, then the supposed "advantage" is lost, since reinstallation is required then as well.

Perhaps, since it's late in the day, I'm tired and missing something. Out of curiosity I just looked for the modify option to revert to SP1.0 (via the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel) and don't see it as I did for reverting from 1.0 to 0.

Has the rollback option evaporated with 2.0?

Per O. Hoel ______________________________________________________________________

To answer your question Mike... I know my VAR has multiple computers, probably each running a different service pack. It also allows him to troubleshoot w/ different hardware configurations as well I suppose.

I'm sure there are people out there who are happy w/ the WI, probably the same people who pushed Swx in that direction. I'd be hard pressed to say they just pulled it out of the butts. Nevertheless... they should've had the wehre-with-all to know better and do what's best for everyone! I mean really... I just as soon keep a computer image of each service pack and if I need to go back one... I'll just blow that image down... it's actually faster than messing w/ Swx WI installation / rollback feature!

Eric

It seems to me that there were some pretty vitriolic posts here a while ago that demanded that SW be able to uninstall service packs. Those are the people we have to thank for the WI. Be careful of what you wish for, you may get it.

I'm having a hard time finding anything positive about the WI compared to the old way of doing it.

matt

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snipped-for-privacy@cinci.rr.com (Eric Swartz) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

This newsgroup sure is a fickle place. Before the WI was forced on the users, many here in the ng screamed for the ability to roll back a sp every time a sour one arrived. Now that it's possible to roll back a sp, we find something else to complain about. I'm not defending the speed of the WI. Just making an observation.

I really don't know what takes the WI so long to do an update. And for some reason, Bluebeam tried to phone home during the install. ZoneAlarm took care of that.

I really get worried when software on its own accesses the internet. Makes you wonder if some of the issues we all have could be bluebeam related since the sp2 knocked it out then they to down the sp2.

Of all things they focus development on being able to rollback service packs? Maybe because they know some SP's are crap! Then to throw salt in the wound it takes longer to apply the new service packs or roll one back than it does reinstalling from scratch! HTH can you say we shouldn't be complaining about that!?!?!?!

(best beaver impression) Well, gee Mr. SolidWorks. You're the greatest.

Jeff "Can I be a Keynote speaker at SWW 2004?"

Software development ...

It's like architecture.

You start with an 8 room house. You add a room. Then you add another room. repeat 400 times. As you go you never build hallways because you never know what direction the next room needs to be. Later you have to shore up sagging and cracked ceilings under the upper additions.

Now do you really think you have a 400 room mansion?

That is why the Mozilla project that started out with netscape 4.0 code, threw in the towel and started over from scratch. It took 3 years for Mozilla to catch up to where Netscape was.

I assure you SW is way more complex.

Joe

Maybe.

Don't forget that Mozilla is a platform. Almost an OS.

--nick e.

From what I've been able to conclude is that when performing a SP update the WI verifies the 'integrity' of the installed files before performing the actual update. Good idea but takes to long. I don't know much about the WI but I believe this is an option that can (read: SHOULD) be turned off.

Not so sure. You think SW has corner cases? Imagine trying to create a web browser capable of properly rendering all the HTML in the world that doesn't conform to any standard, but 'used to look just fine' in browser XYZ from 1992.

Jim S.

Hee hee hee..... I have a secret that has helped me avoid these problems.

...snip