For quite some time, the SolidWorks Installation Manager has been a source of much frustration for users trying to install or update software. It has been one of a couple of areas of Solidworks that I personally was never able to understand, and be happy with. That is until the release of Service Pack 1.0 for Solidworks 2009. Normally with each service pack released by Solidworks, they also release a newer version of the SWIM itself. Normally you will see it as the initial 20mb download when you first start the SWIM.
So whats so different to make me change my mind? For the most part, things are explained better. It walks you through the process, and helps you to get it set up correctly.
One of the first screens you encounter will be showing you what products you will be upgrading:
Right from this screen, you will see what products are going to download onto your computer. In my case I'm upgrading Solidworks Premium, so you see listed above just about all the normally used products. Now this is where a big source of frustration comes from for most users. They cant understand why the download is so big compared to downloading just the stand alone service pack file for Solidworks. Its because you are downloading patches for all the products listed under products to upgrade. In this instance its 866mb of files. If I was downloading just the SW patch, its about 120mb for SP.
Now we don't use PDM, so why should I be forced to download the patch for it if I'm not using it? I don't have to. So by checking the Customize Products to Upgrade button, then clicking next, I get this screen:
All I have to do is expand the Solidworks Explorer/Workgroup PDM box, and then choose to not install it:
That will tell the SWIM to not download those files. If there are any other products you don't want to upgrade, this is the screen you do it on. If I were to uncheck everything but the core SW patch, I would be downloading approximately .12gb or 120mb. See how that works? So in fact, SWIM doesn't download unnecessary files, its trying to get everything at once, you just need to tell it if you want something else.
Another complaint by uses has typically been why do they need the original DVD to do service packs? Well evidently its a Microsoft thing:
There is no real explanation why its a Microsoft issue, but at least we know its not just a quirk of the software.
On a different note, the file location shown in that window is going to default to where you originally installed SW 2009 from. In my case, I downloaded the files, then burned them to a DVD so I could do local installs. So in the window above SWIM is looking for that DVD. Well on the production DVD's, the file structure is just slightly different. I had to browse to the Correct folder on the DVD, and everything was fine.
So if you have avoided the SWIM in the past, I would highly encourage you to give it another shot with SP1.0 for SW2009. Follow the recommendations above, and you should be surprised at how much of a time save the SWIM actually is!
Do you have other computers to upgrade as well? No need to download the files on every computer. On Monday I will show you how to share the download with other computers with relative ease!
Yes, the SWIM has "improved" as far as options go, but in the end it's just an anti-piracy checker. It is still far more cumbersome than downloading the SP file(s)you need from the Customer Portal as it use to be. SWIM crashed twice for me going to '09 SP1 too btw.
Posted by: mer | November 15, 2008 at 08:31 AM