Who knew? What’s new for SW2011

As a member of the Technical Support Team at Symmetry Solutions, each year we are required to be recertified by SolidWorks.  Part of the recertification test is focused on new functionality and features for the latest release of SolidWorks.  As you may or may not know, there is a “What’s New” file for every new release of the software that documents these changes.  You can access this file from your help menu in SolidWorks.  Like many, I am one of those people that scan the document for some highlights when I install each new release.  However, since my recertification test was approaching, I thought I would give it a more thorough read.  You know what I discovered (again)?  There is a lot of good information in that document.  I won’t try and summarize the entire thing, but here is one tip that I think may be useful if you are in the process of updating hardware:

“You can transfer a license from a computer even if SolidWorks is no longer installed on that computer. You can download and run SolidWorks Activation Wizard from the SolidWorks customer portal to transfer the license.”

So now when you get that annoying message about “Activation Count Exceeded” because you forgot to transfer the license off of your old computer, you no longer need to call technical support to resolve the problem.

Note, the tool is new and currently only applies to SW2011 installations.

Take some time and read through the “What’s New” document (again).  It may not be the most fun reading material available, but I recommend it for all SolidWorks users, as it can help you get the most from your software.

P.S.  You will be happy to know that all the members of your SolidWorks Technical Support Team here at Symmetry Solutions passed their recertification test.