Installing 2009 SW & PDMWork Group SP 1.0 3

[Standing]

Our Vault upgrade to PDMWorks Group 2009 SP 1.0 went very well.
Things to know: Users and Vault must be at same SP.
1. Upgrade the vault first, do not upgrade stand-alone users yet.
2. Once the Vault is at SP 1.0 have stand-alone users double click PDMWorks Group 2008 icon.
3. Now click update in the stand-alone dialog.

As for SolidWorks and the PDM administrator, I would not do a manual download to upgrade SolidWorks. I had to manually install the SolidWorks Workgroup PDM VaultAdmin admin tool.

Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2008 x64, SP5.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
HP xw8600,
64-bit Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 1
Intel Xeon CPU, 3.00 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Virtual memory 166682 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 4600

 

[NL8]

Bradley,

Get ready for an up and down ride with PDM. We've been using it for the past week and alot of the functionality that we were used to is simply gone. No longer can you drag and drop a part into an assembly and have the system automatically dump it to your working directory. Instead you must manually check it out into your directory, regardless of whether or not you want ownership, then you can drag and drop to your pleasure. Oh, and fair warning, PDM will randomly trip your read only flag, regardless of your ownership. I've had complaints for more than half my user base that they've had to take ownership of a part multiple times in the same session because PDM randomly deiceds that the part in question needs to be read only. So much for not making any changes to PDM


Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 08 x64, SP 4.0
SW 09 x64, SP 0.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[Standing]

Joe,
I got my first complaint about dragging and dropping a part into an assembly. Thanks for the warning. I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.
A star for you.


Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2009 x64, SP1.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
HP xw8600,
64-bit Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 1
Intel Xeon CPU, 3.00 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Virtual memory 166682 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 4600

 

[macduff]

Kudos to you Bradley for taking the time to do this!

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[macduff]

Joe,
Thanks for the info. This is why I kept asking & commenting about this on eng-tips. No one except Bradley and yourself responded to concerns of SW2009 and the PDM Workgroup software.

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[NL8]

Colin, Bradley,

I have multiple calls in to my VAR regarding PDM issues. When I get a chance I'll post the content of the calls, and any resolution I get, here. Please report these issues to your VAR, last I checked SW did SP fixes on a needed basis, the more calls about a problem the more likely it is to get fixed. I have something like 10 calls open that I'm working through with my VAR this release, and I'll keep opening more as I find problems.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 08 x64, SP 4.0
SW 09 x64, SP 0.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[macduff]

Joe,
Are the 10 calls about PDM Workgroup issues or a combination of both?



Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[NL8]

I have three calls in for PDM, a weldment call i can't duplicate, a couple of Routing issues and a few general SW crash issues.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 08 x64, SP 4.0
SW 09 x64, SP 0.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[Standing]

I put in an enhancement request to drag and drop from PDM Work Group again.

Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2009 x64, SP1.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
HP xw8600,
64-bit Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 1
Intel Xeon CPU, 3.00 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Virtual memory 166682 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 4600

 

[pdybeck]

In my opinion, PDMWorks WorkGroup is getting burried by SolidWorks in favor of development spent on Enterprise. There were zero improvements in 2009 and apparently a few regressions. I wouldn't hold my breath about enhancement requests - maybe bug fixes will be handled, but I don't imagine with a high priority. Makes me wonder what my subs money all these years was for - an abandonment of WorkGroup in favor of Enterprise, thats what. I would not be suprised to see a push to get WorkGroup users over to Enterprise at some point in the future. I might not object to that as long as I don't loose any of the functionality in WorkGroup that we are using.

 

[GRF]

I have already been seeing the push to go to Enterprise over Workgroup. I probably talk to my sales person every couple of weeks and for the past 4-5 months just about every phone call he mentions Enterprise.

I attended a webinar on it and the functionality and usability seems much better than PDMworks. You can access it directly though windows explorer you do not need to go through Solidworks Explorer. This implies that the permisions and log in is controlled by the computer log in so you should not have to remember another username and password.

 

[pdybeck]

GRF,

Agreed that Enterpise has more capability than WorkGroup, but there are things that are different. I think Enterprise needs to have an Item Centric view capability (like WorkGroup has had since its inception) before the interface will be close enough for WorkGroup users to feel comfortable. Item centric capability is coming in SP2 supposedly...

Pete

 

[MRaschke]

Hi,

interesting to read your PDMWorks issues.

Maybe anyone has an idea for my problem. Since last year I'm using PDMworks and I like that you can have your vault running on any machine after half an hour. But since 2009 SP01 and SP02 x32 x64 I have on some machines a hanging system after RMB on any item in the vault and LMB on "open/check out". I have full richts on the vault, vaultadmin can access it without any problems, I can check in items, but when trying to check out the system hangs (with no further message).

I would be grateful for any ideas
Manfred

finally some personal comments to whom it may concern:

ps: for me it is very depressing (CSWP, many years SWX, few years INV ;-) ) to see that SWX is not able/willing to improve the existing features (materials, appearances, parallel processor support, 3D graphic performance, .....), but to bring constantly new tools and features which the pro doesn't want (speed pack causing more troubles than speed, photoview360, new program window design SWX Explorer and SWX still different, not fully compatible with NVIDIA drivers, the upgrade procedures are changing constantly, with the upgrade to SWX2009SP01 errrors-> having to install it with SLDIMST, I guess I downloaded 20GB just for the upgrade to 2009SP01, ..........). My personal feeling is since a stable version of SWX2007 the package is getting worse and worse.

pps: Now inventor brings the import feature for CATIA and SWX doesn't follow (company policy allegedly!?) During 3 years INV has improved so much and SWX is downgrading more and more. I don't want to work with INVENTOR as it seems even worse to me. But what will be in another 3 years?

 

[MRaschke]

sorry it is with SP00 and SP01 that I have the PDMWorks workgroup problems.

cheers Manfred

 

[NL8]

Bradley, Colin,

Just heard back from my VAR on the two PDM issues I reported above. In addition to the two issues I had above we've also noted that the only way to get the "Update/Reload all from vault" command to work is to disable the control "Set filesystem read-only attribute if not owner" to off, which I wouldn't do if this were the last vault on the planet and my user base perfect. My VAR tells me that the Update error and the drag and drop error are critical SPR's for SW right now and that I will be notified when they are fixed. As for the loss of write access randomly, well, [flush], let's just say that the team that put the new settings together for our '09 install missed something.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 1.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[macduff]

Joe,
Thanks for the feedback because I was getting ready to turn the switch over to SW2009. I think I'm stick with SW2008 for now and deal with its "failed to save document" crashes I deal with 5 times a day.

Will your SPR's be incorporated into SW2009 SP2.0? And when is SP2.0 coming out anyways?

Colin

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[NL8]

Colin,

I don't know the answer to either question. The best the VAR would tell me is that these are critical issues which should put them high on the priority list, but we'll see. I'm hoping that they are included. On the whole, I think I'm happier with 2009 than I was with 08, which was leaps and bounds over 07.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 1.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[Standing]

DekkerDesign,

Thanks for the information.
Another problem we are encountering is with the PDM Workgroups Stand-alone seats. A couple of computers cannot open a file from the Vault using viewer or eDrawings. What they have to do is copy the file to a known folder. Then open the file after starting eDrawings. Our VAR says he is looking into it.


Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2009 x64, SP1.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
HP xw8600,
64-bit Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 1
Intel Xeon CPU, 3.00 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Virtual memory 166682 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 4600 Driver 7.15.11.6956

 

[macduff]

Bradley,
I have the same exact problem with viewing edrawings in the vault in SW2008. And we're on network licenses. Let me find some info my VAR sent me. I'll be back in a bit.

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2008 SP 4.0
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[showel]

thanks