solidworks 2006 crashing after installing service pack 3 1

[berkshire]

Microsoft has come out with their service pack ( security upgrade 3). Since then my copy of Solid-works 2006 which has been running fine up until now, occasionally gives me a signal that it has encountered a problem and needs to close. About twice a week usually right when I am in the middle of something.
Running Solid-works RX indicates, that other than being a bit low on memory ( yellow x) there are no problems with the program. Of course every time this does this, the computer is sending an error report to Microsoft.
Is any body else having this problem?
B.E.

 

[dmctiernan]

Hie berkshire, I can really understand your headache with this one. My experience of XP SP3 has been a bad experience also.................however slightly different.

One Monday of last week, I unpacked a brand new Dell workstation (tested on the SW website), powered up, connected to the company network and installed MS Office 2003. Shortly afterwards, the usual, "updates are ready to install" so I proceeded with the updates (a mixture of security patches). Out of the box the OS was XP SP2, so while I was in "updating" mood, I decided to use "Microsoft Update", and basically I installed everything that was recommended, including SP3, obviously thinking that it was the right thing to do by keeping eveything up-to-date.

HOWEVER, I started to install SW2008SP4 from a full download, all was fine until 65%, then error 1603 and the installation fails. Possibly the download I thought, so I used the DVD at SP0.0, same error message at 65%. So I gave up and contacted my VAR. They said, that it must some preconfigured Dell setting in the windows registry so wipe the HDD and re-install everything. I planned to do that on Wednesday however my own Dell workstation had issues so I ended up reformatting its HDD and installing everything from scratch instead. I done the same installation procedure as the other workstation and the same damn error 1603 message again.

After alot of messing about, I ended up installing SW2007SP5 onto both machines. No error messages, perfect install. As a test I then gambled to upgraded that working installation to SW2008SP4, the error message 1603 came up only when installing SW Explorer, but I just uninstalled the previous 2007 version of SW Explorer and ran the SW Explorer installation again. No errors this time. Now I have a working machine again.

I have never had so much hassle in all my years trying get some bloody software installed. The funny things is, I actually had 3 version of SW running my own workstation prior to wiping it (2007sp5, 2008sp4, 2009Beta3) All worked perfectly. The OS was on SP3 of XP.

So from my experience I have deduced the following:
1) For a brand new workstation, Do NOT install XP SP3 until you have Solidworks 2008 up and running first.
2) SW2007 appears to install fine XP SP3. I can't speak for any other version.

According my VAR, SP3 is changing, in some way, registry permissions which is causing the installation to fail. They recommend holding off on installing SP3 for another few weeks until MS have made some tweaks, and if already installed to roll-back the installation to SP2.

Anyhow, thats my two cents worth.

Cheers,
Declan.

 

[berkshire]

That kinda confirms my suspicions, everything was working fine until I put Sp3 into the computer.
B.E.

 

[progdie]

I recently received a new computer, equipped w/ xp pro sp 3, also a Dell. Using SW 2008 sp 0.1 (if it ain't broke don't fix it.) Installed SW after the upgrade of the OS, everything is OK. No crashes, rock solid. Been using this setup for 2 months now. Dell precision 5400 Intel Xeon E5420, 2.5GHz, 4 GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX1700
Regards.
C

 

[fcsuper]

Thanks for this posting. It answers my questions about XP SP3. Not going to do it.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I've installed XP-sp3 on eight computers (one with SW08-sp4, one with SW2006sp4, the rest without any CAD) ... no problems with installing ... no problems seen on any PC.

 

[dmctiernan]

Its a pretty mixed response on this issue......either everything has gone perfect or its been a complete disaster story. Unfortunately its been the latter for me.

I will have to adopt the approach of "if its not broken don't try to fix it".