It is now 2012 and this release is a couple service packs in. So it may be time for you to start looking at upgrading.

There are many things that you need to consider before you deploy and making sure your models work is top priority. What else may need to be considered before you decide to upgrade? This is a question you should ask yourself before any upgrade be it a new version or even just a service pack.

1. First find out if your current files have any conflicts with the new version as somethings do change with the new release.
2. Make sure customer and vendors will be compatible with the new version.
3. See that you are still running a supported OS this will be important for the 2013 release as Windows XP will not be supported.
4. Then look at the graphics card and driver. Every year SolidWorks does test card and driver combinations but not all cards make the list for testing. So if you have an older card and do not find it on the testing website you may need to get a new one. But if it is still being tested you may just need to update the driver.
5. Other things to consider are peripherals and software to see if they are compatible with the new version. This could be CAM software, printing drivers and even partner products. These may need to be upgraded as well and may keep you at an older version longer.

Those are just a few things to keep in mind before doing any upgrade. It would be best to have a procedure in place with a check list so you know what has been finished.

So 2012  is now released, and they have finally fixed a couple of things that had changed if you upgraded to Windows 7 or Vista. If you never used XP with a Workgroup vault, you may not be aware of these functions. You used to be able to browse the vault from the “SolidWorks Open” dialog. There was a link on the left in the favorites along with Desktop and My Documents. In 2012, they have brought this back for users of Windows 7 and Vista. It is a little different then it is in XP as it is not added to favorites, but it still gets the files you want to open.

The button can be found at the bottom of the open dialog. When selected, it opens a “Select from Vault” dialog that allows you to browse the vault. By default, it is set to check out and if you just select “Check Out” it will go back to the SolidWorks Open and this will then point to the check out location called out in the Workgroup client options. There is also the “Check Out Advanced.” This will open the standard check out dialog for Workgroup and populate with the selected files from the Select from Vault. This makes it easier to open a file to a specific configuration even if it was not last saved to that one.

There is also one thing that is not listed in the “Whats New for 2012″  but I have had a few customers bring this up as being an annoyance.This is also primarily seen in Windows 7 & Vista. This has to do with searching in the vault from inside SolidWorks. So you set up the search criteria and tell it to “Find” and it searches down the Vault View Tree. When it finds the first to meet the criteria it stops and highlights the file in the tree. Really it does, but it is very light and not always easy to see. Recently, I received a fixed SPR notification for this issue and you can now actually see the highlighted file. Once again, this is not an issue if you are still using Windows XP as you could adjust the brightness of the monitor if this was not visible enough.

Before SolidWorks 2011 borrowing a license was a little cumbersome as you had to make sure to borrow a Standard seat as well as a Professional or Premium if you wanted extra add-ins. Also the list of possible products was extremely long and had nothing to do with what licenses you purchased.

In SolidWorks 2011 there were changes made to the borrow function to clean up the user interface. It now shows only what  licenses you purchased and you no longer need to select a Standard license to be able to use the software.

For example on my license manager I do not own a seat of Standard so it shows zero available but I have plenty of Premium. This is working as designed and if yours looks this way not to worry. Going forward you do not need to borrow the Standard. It will do this for you as the License Manager knows you need this.

That doesn’t mean you cannot borrow a Standard license if you want it takes a second step to do so. The process involves selecting, for example, the Premium that is available and click “Borrow”. Then the Select Product dialog comes up and this has a pull down that allows you to take either the Premium or just the Standard.

Once the product is selected I can then click OK and it will show me what I have borrowed and until when. Now at this time you need to disconnect from the server to be able to use the borrowed license. If you do not disconnect you will just take another license from the pool.

SolidWorks has had the complete uninstall functionality for the last couple major releases. If you are not aware it is no surprise as it is not very easy to find.

To use it you start the uninstall and the installation manager will open with a list of products to remove. You then need to right mouse click on the header and select “Total Uninstall”. This would remove all settings with no options to not remove specific items.

New in SolidWorks 2012 you can choose what to remove from the install

As you can see above you can select to remove almost everything SolidWorks. Program files is selected by default and cannot be unselected. You may also select registry entries, data file locations and also download files.

Once you have the appropriate items selected and you continue with the uninstall a dialog opens warning that you are removing more than just the standard uninstall does. Proceed with your selective uninstall if desired.

Recently, we have been getting a lot of calls from customers doing upgrades to their SolidWorks and Workgroup installations. This is a simple project, unless someone else completed the previous upgrade. If that’s the case, it is still fairly simple but there are a couple of things that can be missed or forgotten. Like the vault Admin tool on the client end, this is not selected for install by default. You will need to make sure it is selected in the products to install. It is a little hard to find if you don’t know where to look.

This screen shot shows what to select so this gets installed with the rest of the SolidWorks on the client. Workgroup is base on the SolidWorks Explorer  platform so it needs these components installed for it to work.

Now the main issue we have been seeing for the server portion is where is the location of the Vault. By default SolidWorks will place this on the root of C but most IT people I have spoke with do not like putting programs there. That is not a problem. If you need, it can be placed on the root of whatever drive you want to use. But ideally, it shouldn’t be buried in any folder, it needs to be on the root. This being said, if you are upgrading the vault and you are not sure where it is, find that out first. Then, when you start the  install you can make sure it points to the correct location. Otherwise the Installer cannot find it and it will use the default location, which is C. Then you will have it installed, but it will be an empty vault.

The screen shot above shows where it will install the vault. It should find the correct location but if it does not, look at the area I have highlighted. This will tell you where it is going to upgrade the vault to. If this is showing C:\VaultData\ and you know it is not there, select “Change”. This opens the area that will allow you to browse to the correct location.

Hopefully this will assist you in a smooth Workgroup Vault upgrade. The screen shots above are from the 2011 SP3 installation manager, so if you are using an older version it may look a little different. The 2011 vault installation uses the SolidWorks IM, while previous versions used the older Windows IM.

I hope this clears up some of the upgrade issues you may encounter. As always, if you run into any issues during an upgrade, our Technical Support team members are happy to assist you.