Large Drawing Performance in 2004 SP 2.1

[pdybeck]

I was just wondering if anyone could let me know if the problems with large assembly drawing performance have been resolved with SP 2.1. I have a test set up with SP1 installed and had some nasty problems with large assembly drawings crashing or not even opening. Those problems were not there in SP0. Does 2.1 eliminate these problems? I don't feel like rendering my machine useless for 1-2 hours to install 2.1 only to find out it doesn't solve my problems - terrible productivity. Thanks in advance.

Pete Yodis

 

[pdybeck]

I have tested 2.1 and I am in the process of installing it on all our machines. 2.1 was definitely an improvement on 1.0. Drawing performance is as it should be, which is much improved over previous versions of SolidWorks thanks to the lightweight sub-assemblies and drawings and somewhat to the draft view quality option. I have noticed some issues with the conversion wizard failing on some assembly drawings, though. When I open these failed drawing files and try to save, they crash (un handled error). I have spoken to my VAR about it they said they have heard that from several of their customers. They are trying to nail it down and then log a complaint. The solution for me was to open the assembly first, set all components to fully resolved, force rebuild (Cntrl Q), save, and then open the assembly drawing. At this point I was able to save and then close and reopen the drawing without crashing. Other than those few files, 2004 seems to be running much better. Still, it almost seems like SP 1.0 was a terrible SP and should not have been released. Some might argue others should not have been released either, but thats the reason why I waited and tested here before rolling out to the rest of the company. However, a large cost was involved for my company as it was my time being eaten up instead of SolidWorks releasing some more stable versions in the beginning. I agree, that anyone should test before rolling out to a larger audience, but it would be nice if the confidence level in quality service packs could be higher. Thanks for all who added to this original post. Your help and thoughts on 2.1 was appreciated.

Pete Yodis

 

[SBaugh]

Theophilus,

My installation of SW 2004 took ~45 minutes on the new machine and upgrade from 0.0 to 2.1 was about 25 minutes--much faster than what I've been hearing with other people. (?)

The reason it's faster is because SW shut off some type of logging when installing the SP. That's why you don't see the slow install times.

From the SW website under Customer Bulletins:

To help diagnose installation problems, the Service Pack 2.1 installation had the verbose diagnostic logging feature enabled. This feature caused an increase in the time to apply sp 2.1 To remedy this problem, sp 2.1 downloaded on or after 4 February 2004 now has logging disabled by default. You will find this significantly reduces the time to install sp 2.1.

The only change is to the sp 2.1 installation program itself, and the resulting SolidWorks sp 2.1 installation is functionally identical to the previous version. Therefore, customers with sp 2.1 already installed do not need to download and reapply this Service Pack.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376