SolidWorks 2008/9 Admin Image Info

Just some info on building admin images and setting up network shares for SolidWorks 2008 and notes on upgrading to 2009.’, ‘Now, we currently have 21 seats of SolidWorks and are using network administrative images, PDMWorks workgroup vault, and a single network license server.

During installation of 2008, after building the administrative images, we put them on the server and shared them as:

SolidWorks Current Image 32bit

and

SolidWorks Current Image 64bit

Using this naming convention makes it possible to get everything ready for a global upgrade without impacting a production environment. Once the new images are completed, you can upgrade the server and point the shares to the new admin image folder. So, for example, we had this:

c:\SolidWorks Images\2008SP0-32bit
c:\SolidWorks Images\2008SP41-32bit
c:\SolidWorks Images\2008SP0-64bit
c:\SolidWorks Images\2008SP41-64bit

and to go from SP0 to SP4.1, we just had to point the “Current Image 32bit” to the 2008SP41-32bit folder and the next time SolidWorks is launched on the client, it will upgrade.

Same thing for upgrading to 2009. We took the time to build a 32bit and 64bit image on the server and then, when it came time to do the actual upgrade, we just downloaded the latest license file from SolidWorks.com (Account needed), upgraded all the services on the server, added the new license file (so it would accept 2009 clients) and changed the share point. Then, it was as simple as logging into all the clients and launching SolidWorks.

Now, we are investigating going to stand alone installs because we are having client slowdown. Now, we aren\’t using small engineering machines, these are monsters. And, we users experience a slowdown, it seems to impact all users. So, we did a test on a single users machine and installed SolidWorks 2009 (not using the network admin image) fresh from the DVD. As of right now, the user indicates that he is not impacted by these slowdowns. The next step will be to do stand alone installs on a few other users machines and see what they think.

I know stand alone installs are an IT nightmare, but I\’d rather go through the work to manually install/upgrade users than to have to deal with their complaints of lock-ups and slow downs.