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.

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.