The CAD is not a playground so one should wait until
the OS is offically supported. You might try at your own
risk but then wait for the final version of W7 and don't
use a beta for this
There's nothing wrong with testing software Beta versions if that's what interests you. I agree it is not advisable to do so in a production environment, but Beta versions need to be tested in a public environment to get the exposure to 'real world' use. If public testing of Beta's was not done, even more bugs would not be discovered till it was too late.
Anyway, the reason I ask is more for a comparative survey. A number of SW users on the official SolidWorks forum are testing SW/Win7 (for whatever reasons) on their home machines. I was just wondering if other mainstream modelling system users were doing the same, and if so, whether their findings were good, bad or indifferent.
I have also posed this question in the Pro/E forum.
I am running se v20 on windows 7 and it doesn't finish the installation. It hangs where it is removing backup files. If you quit the setup there you can still run se but as soon as you install something else it clashes with that setup which is still running in the background and then uninstall se completely. Which is quite irretating. Further it runs like a dream in windows 7. And for the record win 7 is the best windows so far.
Some SW users had incomplete install problems. Their solution was to download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86) from
I have downloaded it and installed it and it doesn't work. Even try Visual C++ 2008 and still doesn't work. Have sent UGS an email. Hopefully they can come up with an answer. Will post it as soon as they reply. Thanks in any case.
Fast forward to May 2009, I experimented with Windows7 build 7100 64bit and Solid Edge V20 32bit. As mentioned in previous posts, the installer hangs and never finishes it's job. If you bring up the process manager (Ctrl+Alt+delete) and kill anything to do with "printing", such as "printer installer", the process will finalize and you will have a valid installation. You may want to reboot and restart Solid Edge to verify a valid install. My understanding is the V20 64 bit installs well with the same trick, but refuses to run after reboot. I wonder what was UGS response to NardoAPC. By the way I think it is not Windows7 causing this problem, my NEi-Nastran V9.2 X86 refuses to install searching for XP sp1, or Vista. Apparently installer programs are the root of these problems.
UGS came back to me and said it is OS problems, but about 1 month ago W7 did an update of sorts while I was sleeping and I try to install the next morning and it works perfect now. No problems what so ever. Will check which update it did and post it.
I don't know about the floating licenses, but the node-locked licences are tied to the HDD number. So no separate HDD if you have a node-locked license and want to dual boot.
One thing that is coming along with the official release of Windows7 is XP Mode. It is an XP virtual machine based on MS VirtualPC, and includes an XP SP3 licence. It will be available as free download with Pro, Enterprise and Ultimate versions. It will allow XP apps to run in Seven. More details in this article:
try dual-booting Windows and Linux.
(it is surprisingly easy to set up BTW)
I've been running WinXP and Ubuntu (a Linux distro) at home for the past 18 months. Tried to install SE V20 and ST in Ubuntu with Wine, a software layer that allows some Windows programs to run on Linux, but without luck.(most CAD apps won't run: wine development is done mostly on games and graphics apps)
I dream of freeing myself completely of Microsoft, but it seems it ain't happening anytime soon, except if I change my line of work!
After reading a little more about it, I don't think it's going to be of use for CAD apps that wouldn't run on Windows 7. I'm pretty sure all it does for video is emulate a basic and generic video card, it won't be able to address the physical video card on the host machine (no virtualization software can at the moment, to my limited knowledge). And one reviewer said he didn't find any setting to control how much memory to allow to the emulated video card.
I don't understand why MS chose the virtualization way to run Win XP apps. It seems to me adding a compatibility software layer to Windows 7 would have been more sensible, and would have needed much less overhead.
Hello to all.
This is my first post here.
I apologize for English, I am Brazilian and I do not know speak very well.
I also had problems in the W7 with Solid Edge ST but I managed to solve.
- Upon installation, the end, when it crashes press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC, will enter the task manager. Tab finalize the process "PrinterInstaller.exe" will release the installation window to click on finish.
- The problem with the templates in the initial screen is only set up the shortcut to start SE in compatibility mode with Windows XP (Service Pack3).
