How To Deploy Solidworks Service Packs With One Download

After download nearly a gigabyte of info, you don't want to do it again and again for every computer.  If your not using an administrative image, I'm going to show you the easy way to do it.  All you will need is a 1gb thumb drive, and some free time.

During the normal process of downloading service packs for Solidworks, one of the screen shows a message at the bottom about sharing the files your downloading to use on other computers:

See that blue message at the bottom of that screen?  I have never been able to find where that documentation actually exists, until today.  The impression I get from that message is that the information is in the Solidworks help files.  I was never able to find anything using different search terms such as 'share download', etc.  Well it seems as if that documentation actually resides in the download folder of the files you are watching being downloaded:

That read me file tells you basically how to do it.  A possible easy fix to this once previous mystery would be to reword the last part of that blue message in the download window to say "Check the documentation in the folder being downloaded."  Lets move on.

Once you complete your first upgrade, you need to insert your USB thumb drive, and copy the folder called Solidworks 2009 SP1 onto it.  Now exactly where this folder resides is set by this page during the initial download of files:

The default location is what Windows will pick for you based on how Windows has been written to act for downloads.  Thankfully enough you can browse to an easier to find location if you like.

So after you copy that folder to your thumb drive, grab you SW dvd and head to the next computer.  Copy that folder to a known location, and open it.  You will want to click on the following file:

That will launch the Installation Manager.  Once it grabs your serial number from the Windows Registry, it will still need to download the new SWIM files:

so don't be confused by the quick 20mb download.  After thats finished, you will end up at this screen:

You will want to select the second option, then browse to the location of the files you copied from the USB thumb Drive.  Clicking next will start the upgrade process, and will finish once all the service packs have been completed.

Comments

[mikeo]

First comment on your site that I've read for a while.

All I have to say is I chuckled at "quick 20mb download" some memories are hard to leave like waiting an hour for a 4mb download. Ah the "good" ole days, if someone told me 15 years ago that 20mb would download quick I think I still would be laughing.

We have downloaded the service packs and saved it on the server in case the new version would not be preferred and we wanted to revert back. Or wanted to go back a few versions.