Solidworks, Vista, Server 2003, OMG, LOL, :)

Ever since Vista's release a year ago, you hear nothing but bad comments like "Using XP to upgrade Vista" etc. All along I have had one issue with the Vista platform, they had too many versions. The decision to release so many versions just created confusion that was unnecessary. Anyhow now that the Vista matrix can now be deciphered, that's all in the past. Here at the company I work for, we received a new project that called for an additional seat of Solidworks, and that meant a new computer. Being that my current desktop was the oldest computer in the engineering department, the computer-hand-me-down pecking order allowed for me to get something new. I was previously running a Pentium-D with 4GB ram and a Quadro FX3500 video card. It performed fairly well for the tasks I needed. For the new computer I picked up a Core 2 Duo, Intel motherboard, 4gb of high performance ram, and decided to keep the 3500. The kicker of the deal was to abandon XP, and go for Vista Ultimate.

The assembly went as planned, and all the components went in exactly as they should with one exception, the 3.5" floppy drive. Now who still uses these? Well Microsoft officially categorized the 3.5" floppy drive an accessory a few years back, but those little disks of 1mb capacity sure are an easy way to transfer information without having to worry about USB thumb drives installing stuff on a computer just to be able to read them. The problem I had was that the motherboard I selected didn't have a floppy interface on it. So what to do? Store the drive with the computer stuff and keep it as a spare. For the $6 price, I wasn't too upset.

Installing Vista is just like installing XP, but it goes much quicker, and there is less interaction necessary. After getting Vista installed, I put in the CD containing the motherboard drivers, and it installed all necessary software to get the onboard sound, network interface card, and other misc drivers working correctly. Vista was actually able to get these items up and going during its install, but I am a firm believer in installing a full set of motherboard drivers. I will say that installing the motherboard drivers was more of a pain than installing Vista. After each driver was installed, the computer rebooted itself requiring me to input logon credentials each time.

Joining the computer to the company network was as simple as turning on the computer. The networking of computers at the business level has been around for years, and the future is to carry that into the home. With the various home networking products available now like Microsoft Home Server, it's just a matter of time before your computer in the den is connected to Billy's computer in his room, and you are instant messaging him telling him it's time for bed.

Once the computer was joined to the network, it was just a matter of installing the Office suite of products, and then Solidworks. Solidworks 2008 for Vista comes on the same DVD as the XP version, and installs exactly the same. What's different is the look of the interface. The whole Office 2007 look of toolbars and buttons is fully visualized under Vista. All the rounded buttons and toolbars seem to fit much more nicely into the Vista environment. There are also a couple of quirks that are related to Vista. For example, turning off thumbnail graphics in Vista is no longer an option thanks to the new file explorer and file>open menu in Vista. You can actually thank Apple for this one because Microsoft has chosen to pretty much duplicate the look and functionality found in the OSX platform. It's a good thing though, because browsing folders is much easier.

Performance of Solidworks doesn't seem to be tied to Vista at all. I am experiencing what feels to me to be a faster work flow, and overall it seems speedier. Much of that can be attributed to the high performance ram, and the upgrade in processor. So as far as using Solidworks as an excuse to not move to Vista, I will say that's a non-issue, it works perfectly.

A lot of people are scared of change, and when things change as drastically as Vista has over XP, it's understandable that some people are going to not like the new way of doing things. The problem with that is that at some point you will find yourself behind the times, and the learning curve is that much more difficult. I am a very vocal advocate for embracing new stuff be it hardware or software. I'm the guy that implements the new version of Solidworks companywide before the shipping and receiving guy can even sign for the discs from the DHL guy! Is that a good or bad thing? At one point in time it's both, but the good eventually overcomes the bad, and when that time arrives, you are that much further ahead of the crowd. Vista is undoubtedly the future. This summer, Microsoft will officially cease the distribution of XP, and you will no longer be able to buy it. All the software we use day to day including Solidworks works just as good if not better on Vista now than it does on XP, so the time to upgrade has really come.

So if you're worried about making the move to Vista because you're not sure of how well it will integrate with Solidworks or Server 2003, I can say you will not have an issue with either.

Comments

[Thomas Karlmann]

What does solid works cost? Can you send me an email reply? Thanks.

[iQ]

if it is possible i would like to see benchmark times. i like to see quantification when i here good news like this.

if you have similar computers like new one that you made with different OS's. run a model and compare it to new OS. only if possible. iQ

[Adrian Dunevein]

Thanks for the informative posting Mike. While there may be people who are afraid of change I think there are more who prefer to wait until a service pack or two has past before making the switch. Now that we see you made the change and survived and still have a job to boot, the Neanderthals like me will likely follow suit. Keep up the great work !

Adrian D.
www.aaadrafting.com

[Josh]

Man, Mike, this is great, exactly what is needed to put this issue to bed. This has been my experience too. A lot of people are just too concerned about their shortcut icons moving.