Comments on: 8 Absolutely Odd Facts About SolidWorks 2008

By: Gabi

Gabi — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:43:23 +0000

I have started working in CAD programs about 6 years ago. Started in AutoCAD, the moved to Inventor, next came Solidworks, had a little adventure in Kobotek KeyCreator and Pro E and then arrived to CATIA.
I know how to work very well in all the first three and in the last one.
Now I've got the NX 5 and also the new NX 6 but I haven't tried much in it. Though it's easy.
I hate that Dassault Systemes are running the 100 m with the SW 2008 and SW 2009. And I hate that in a company the last guy to be asked what software to use for CAD is the one man that actually uses it.
I'm tired of all the crashes, in every software and tired of the constant upgrading I have to make to my PC.
But, you know what, it's not worth fighting for.
Instead, I would like to ask any of you, if you have some modeling to do, I offer my help.
Just send sketches, drawings, scans, you need making.
I am asking no money for it.
Of course, you should send only thing that are not very urgent. Beacuse I'll work on my free time. About 4 hours a day.
Thanks and good luck to you all.

PS: If someone can help. I want to learn FEA. Please send documentation if you have any!

e-mail:hack3ru@gmail.com

By: Fred Fulmer

Fred Fulmer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:48:46 +0000

I used Pro-E and Autocad before there was a Windows operating system. Ran Pro-E on a UNIX operating system and I agree SolidWorks has me looking for another software. They have changed this software from an engineering tool to a marketing toy.

By: sandy

sandy — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:51:31 +0000

I just installed Solid works 2008. I was looking for a Drop test study but don’t know how to load Drop test study. Only Static study is featuring in the Cosmos works. Please Help………..

By: Shopping Sp Market

Shopping Sp Market — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:33:32 +0000

Are people still going to use this, its virtually obsolete now isnt it ?

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By: John Andrew Metza

John Andrew Metza — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:48:34 +0000

SW2008 was not ready for release. It shows the arrogance of the company that they think they can release something once a year with that many changes. It is typical of the president and his mega ego. Even companies as large as Microsoft with a thousand times the staff of SW don’t work off fixed release dates. My company crashed hourly with SW 2008 for six months. Some parts crashed the interface as soon as they were booted up. I don’t even want to talk about the fact you can’t save in an earlier version, that just makes me want to personally throttle the the presisdent of SW. More arrogance. “We know what you need” “We know what is best for you” “We will tell you what you can and can’t do” A real control freak to the core. The opposite of open source and everything that makes software a pleasure to work with. Then the support people always start with blaming you for SW problems. Their favorite line is, “Other customers aren’t experiencing these problems.” By starting off blaming the customer, it really comes off as arrogant. It is the thread the runs through why I am so pissed with this application and the people who support it. First deny there are any problems. “Everybody loves “Other users don’t have these issues” What kind of statement is that? That shows almost no knowledge of applications or how software works. It is totally stupid thing to say with no practical value for the customer with the problem and factually means nothing. The only possible result of the statement is to piss off the customer or make them feel like an idiot.

Then the blame goes on. “You must have installed it incorrectly”, or “your virus software (that we don’t run) is to blame” Or “your video card hasn’t been tested”. What has that got to do with anything in practical sense? I could be running the best SW video card ever made and the fact that it hasn’t been tested makes it crash the software? What will the technician do, test it for me on the phone? What is the point of such a statement to finding the cause of the problem? What is he going to do? Give up the troubleshooting process because my card hasn’t been tested?

We recently went through all the hoops they could think of to find out why our software was crashing the instant we clicked on an annotation. Couldn’t even delete the thing because deleting it requires you to CLICK ON THE FRICKING THING!!! In the end they found a bug in the code. The fix was SP4. So here we are in June and finally the software might be ready to released. They kept their revenue streaming going though, that was the real point to begin with right?

We contract with a designer that has every CAD package known to man running on his server. He is an old timer with tremendous knowlege and a real pleasure to work with. He has to be able to handle anything that comes his way, so needs everything. His favorite is CADKEY. He freely admits it won’t do everything, but says it is easier to build your stuff in CADKEY then import it to SW to do annimations, etc. That is a sad commentary on SW, isn’t it?

Has anyone besides me noticed there are no keyboard equivilents next to the commands? Talk about a bunch of lazy developers. A good GUI has multiple ways of doing things and it is easy to see the keyboard equivalent to any commmand next to the menu item. SW didn’t bother. They took away the “EDIT SKETCH” text, I guess that was too helpful and would’ve been a great place to put the keyboard equivalent, and put an icon in another area. It took me five minutes to find out how to edit a sketch. Multilpy that by all my guys, all the commands they changed and it ads up to a lot of wasted time and money. They could care less though. They sold another round of support licenses. It is the attitude that really sticks in my craw.

jam

And only when your backs are against the wall admit SW2008 has bugs. All software has bugs, it is a mathematical impossibility to fully debug an application when the complexity reaches a certain level. There are whole books written on the subject. SW has the artificial deadline every year to come out with wiz bang new package to keep the revenue flowing. Even giants like Microsoft slip their deadlines for practical reasons. Only sheer arrogance ships something when it isn’t ready. 2008 out of the box was not ready for release. 6 months we crashed over here every single time we opened our design. The box says I have 90 day warranty or I get a refund. How about a refund for the 6 months we couldn’t use it?

By: CT Green

CT Green — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:27:55 +0000

I’ve been having crashing issues too. When SW begins to act strange, such as suddenly failing to highlight edges, a crash is inevitable. It’s time to save, close and re-start. Sometimes re-booting my Dell Precision workstation is required. And, it sounds like this may be an XP vs. Vista issue. I would convert to 64 bit Vista, but our IT people won’t support it. Perhaps they will be willing to install the 32 bit version? Have passionately loved earlier versions of SW. And, it would be worth the effort of installing a new OS to regain speed and stability.

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:00:47 +0000

Been using Solidworks since it first came out. In the last 5 years have used it with Moldworks and agree with CT. Have been having the crashing issues as well but yes give me fast and functional and incremental change instead of a complete revamp. Ive completely reformated my hard drive and removed everything and it crashes so often I dont have time to do anything else but reboot and reload and am forced to constantly save large assemblies. Have looked at other software and am very tempted but there is the large price tag and of course learning all over again. Have called tech support and they never find anything.

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:00:47 +0000

By: CT Green

CT Green — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:54:27 +0000

SW2008 Reminds me of the old Minolta Coroporation that was “Marketing Driven.” They went “marketing crazy” and started adding every conceiveable bell and whistle to all their cameras. What they really needed was a simple auto-focus system that really worked. Canon was the first camera company to do that when they released the “Elan.” It was the first camera in the world that could focus on both vertical and horizontal lines. And, it was lightning fast. And, Canon conquered the marketplace with it, even eclipsing Nikon. Right now they own over 90% of the photo-journalism market. Minolta, on the other hand, was sued for stealing some of those “bells and whistles” and went broke. Sony bought them, and they’re now trying to recover market share. Solidworks seems to have become a “Marketing Driven” comapany ever since they were purchased by Dassault. And, it’s not a good thing. I want a CAD package that’s lightning fast and has lightning fast menus. And, I don’t want them to change everything with each new major release. That drives all of us crazy. How about icons that are easier to see, find and identify, rather than change them to look like the new Vista OS? Have they done studies on that? Have they done regular studies on how to make menus faster and more efficient? If so, they’re keeping it a secret. I want lightning fast software. Instead we’re getting new bells and whistles that most of us don’t want and didn’t ask for. And that, my friends is evidence SolidWorks has become a dysfunctional “Marketing Driven” company. They’re leadership probably never understood why we all moved to SolidWorks in the first place. Dilbert’s boss is alive and well and working at SolidWorks.

By: nwdesigner

nwdesigner — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:22:12 +0000

SW 2008 is like a cat that won’t take a shit. It’s got all the cute fuzziness, except that when you need it to be a good friend and do its duty - it doesn’t. How about instead of releasing a very pricey piece of cat poop (ie. sp 1, sp 2, sp 2.2, sp 3,….), make sure you are selling a great product! I really don’t need to spend a full day installing updates that remind me of why i hate microsoft, and apparently now itunes as well. So, SW engineers, marketeers, and everyone else who is responsible for this powerful cat poop - get your act together. I know i speak for a lot of industrial designers who use this software to create solutions for problems, but i don’t see how I’m going to solve this problem without shooting the cat that won’t shit.

By: CT Green

CT Green — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:50:49 +0000

I work for a very large corporation with facillities all over the world. Yesterday a colleague ask for SW part files we will be making overseas. And, he found he can’t open them because he has SW2007 and I have SW2008. He then asked me to save them in SW2007 and resend them. Ha, ha, like that were possible. His division hasn’t upgraded yet because so many of us are having problems with 2008. And, this situation is not acceptable to us at all. Does anyone know if Solid Edge or Inventor allows saving in older file formats? One other thing, SW2008 is a resource hog that’s driven my Dell Workstation to it’s knees. Have been uninstalling all unessential progs and it hasn’t helped one bit. Remember the days when you could run SolidWorks on a Pentium 1 computer? Those days are gone. It’s ironic as we’ve been moving away from ProE to SolidWorks. And, SolidWorks is now aquiring the same bad traits that compelled us to dump ProE. Hey, I loved earlier versions of SW. But, I passionately hate the 2008 that’s infesting my computer. Somebody shoot me.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:32:25 +0000

Hey Pedro. Thanks for the comment. I think the result of using SW08 are going to be somewhat subjective. We’re not using it in production except what I’m testing out daily, but it has usability that will increase our designers efficiency. The Shortcut bar for one allows in fewer operations while staying in the workspace. the dynamic search has saved time as well although it need to be faster in large assemblies. My suggestion to many that are skeptical of the changes is to go with 2009. beta starts in June and thatwill allow you to try it out and see for yourself, but I already know of some performance enhancements that will help.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:24:52 +0000

Hey Thomas, glad things worked out for you. There’s a disconnect between hardware/software tech. One is always driving the other prematurely. I would have to concur with the upgrade cost. I’ve suggested in the past to wait until your companies next round of hardware upgrades. We are still not using it in production for multiple reason, but I want to make sure the hardware will handle the move to 08/09 and Vista which will coincide with each other.

By: John

John — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:12:52 +0000

Even though I am not having the problems and performance issues many of you have and I’m not a new user. I still have decided not to use SolidWorks for my CNC work anymore. I will only use it for sheet metal and probably stop the maintenance.

I find Rhino3D is a better program for my purpose and it cost less that 1 year of SW maintenance. I’m lucky that parametrics dont mean very much to me. I can do without them. I just need great surface, 2D curve tools and layers on export!. Then we go to Mastercam to cut.
So good luck with SW all!