Having Trouble Keeping Track of Your SolidWorks Activations?

As some of you may or may not know starting with SolidWorks 2007 SP3.0 SolidWorks has moved away from a Registration Code for controlling SolidWorks licenses and has moved to Activation Based licensing of SolidWorks Products.

This new way of licensing SolidWorks has made is a lot easier for customers to install and get their software up and running but has made it harder for CAD administrators to keep track of who and where their SolidWorks licenses have been activated.

We at CATI Tech Support have seen many customers run into these issues as employees have left companies and new employees have started or as computers have been upgraded within engineering. We have created a simple Excel form that you can download at the link below, to help you keep track of your licenses.

This form is set so that you can easily keep track of either your Standalone or Network Home Use Licenses (HUL) of SolidWorks The information inputted into this form will also aid CATI support in the case that you have an employee leaves the company and fails to deactivate their Home Use License of SolidWorks. All you and your users need to do is fill in the following information:

·        Users First and Last name

·        Home or Work Computer Name (see notes on form acquire Computer Name)

·        Date of Installation

·        Email Address that was entered into the Activation Form

·        Standalone Serial Number

There is also an area to fill in information about Network Home Use License (HUL).

If you would like more information about SolidWorks License Activation and Deactivation or some of the new information about Home Use Licensing for SolidWorks 2008 please see the posting about these topics on this CATI Tech Notes blog or by contacting CATI Technical Support at 888-285-2284 or support@cati.com

Download solidworks_activation_license_tracking.xls

Design Better!

Josh Altergott

SolidWorks License Activation and Deactivation

SolidWorks now uses online License Activation instead of a registration code as of SolidWorks 2007 SP 3.1 for standalone seat licensing. You get two Activations per SolidWorks license, one for Office use and one for Home use.

To Activate a License

·      The first time you start a newly installed version of SolidWorks it should automatically ask if you want to activate your seat. If not go to the Help menu in SolidWorks and select “Activate Licenses”

·       Follow the onscreen instructions, and prompts. Fill out the form with the required information making sure that you select the appropriate location “Home” or “Office” under the “Location of Use” menu.

·       The activation will take some time to process as it communicates with the SolidWorks License Server.

·       You will then see a confirmation window that the Activation Succeeded and you are ready to Design with SolidWorks.

To Deactivate a License

·       If you receive a new machine to do your SolidWorks designing on you will need to deactivate a license of SolidWorks before uninstalling the software off the old machine.

·       Start SolidWorks and go to the Help menu in SolidWorks and select “Transfer Licenses”

·       Follow the onscreen instructions and prompts, and wait as the deactivation will take some time to process as it communicates with the SolidWorks License Server.

·       Once SolidWorks is deactivated you can then uninstall and move the software to your new machine and follow the Activation process listed above.

Design better!

Josh Altergott

Text beyond border when opening a DWG file!

Have you ever opened a legacy DWG/ DXF file in SolidWorks or DWG Editor just to do some simple editing only to see that all of your fonts have grown in size and now go over you existing spaces in your title block?

If so, this is a common problem and one that has a simple resolution.

Problem:When we open a file that was created in ACAD into the DWG Editor we are seeing the following. The text over runs the border and the font ISOCPEUR is listed ad “font not found”

Solution: ISOCPEUR text is an AutoCAD specific font, and AutoCAD is not loaded on the problem machine.

To resolve this you will need to do the following:

·        Find a machine with ACAD loaded on it and do a search for that text file (if you do not have a machine with ACAD loaded on it you can either do an internet serach for the font or contact CATI Tech support (888-285-2284 or support@cati.com) to get a copy of the font.)

·        Copy that new file to the problem machine and place it in the following directory C:\Windows\Font folder (Note C:\ in this case is the drive Windows was loaded on to, if you have installed Windows on a different drive letter, please adjust the path accordingly.)

You will then be able to open the files in the DWG Editor or SolidWorks and they will behave correctly. Below is a screen shot of a machine I tested this on and you will see that it loaded the Font and all Attributes related to the font. As you work with your existing files you may find that there are other fonts that are ACAD Specific and need to load those to the user’s machines as well.

Design Better!

Josh Altergott

SolidWorks Home Use Licensing changes starting with SolidWorks 2008

The Home Use License Agreement form for SolidWorks has changed as of 9/30/2007 .  Attached to this blog posting is a copy of the HUL Agreement form that needs to be filled out and faxed back to CATI at the number listed on the bottom of the form.

Download home_use_agreement_form_eng.doc

The key items to note are as follows:

·        Home Use Licenses (HUL) are now activation based.

·        SolidWorks still requires HUL agreements for any new SolidWorks Network licenses purchased.

·        On the form there is now an area for “# of Activations Required” if left blank SW will only issue 2 activations for that HUL. CATI Admin Dept. will fill in a number to match the number of seats owned unless instructed otherwise by the customer.

·        If you are not issued a total number of HUL activations that matches the number of network seats owned you will need to contact CATI support (888-285-2284 or support@cati.com) to have that number increased.

·        With the release of SolidWorks 2008 SolidWorks Corp. will no longer require customers to submit new HUL agreement forms to upgrade their HULs to the latest version. If a customer has an existing 2007 HUL and their SNL is on current subscription their HUL serial number will automatically be updated to 2008.

·        All HUL licenses created will match the lowest level product on the Network that all users can access at one time. (No change from previous versions)

·        If a user leaves a company and does not deactivate their HUL seat the customer will need to contact CATI support to have that HUL seat deactivated.

Enjoy using SolidWorks at home!

              

Design Better!

Josh Altergott

What is the SolidWorks 2008 Installation Manager?

Now that SolidWorks 2008 has been released, many of you are going to download it and try it out before the new DVD’s arrive, which by the way, should be in the beginning of November. One of the first things you will encounter after proceeding to the download page at the SolidWorks website is the new 2008 SolidWorks Installation Manager and its capabilities. Those of you that are already familiar with SolidWorks know about the 2007 Installation Manager. Here are a few things that are new about the 2008 IM.

SolidWorks 2008 uses a new version of the Installation Manager and the goal here is Electronic Software Distribution. It is a Standalone application that can download, update, upgrade, install, modify and repair all SolidWorks products. It can be used to create and manage admin images and standalone installs all within the same user interface. It is a different application than the 2007 Installation Manager. It does not upgrade the 2007 Installation Manager but both versions can coexist on the same machine and you will want to continue to use the 2007 Installation Manager to download service pack updates for the SolidWorks 2007 Install, if you will be using more than one version of SolidWorks on the same workstation at the same time.

How does it Work?

The Installation Manager downloads, verifies, and extracts all the files in parallel during the download process to create the source for all products. Once the files are downloaded, IM will install all of the products automatically. IM uses Windows Installer and installs all products silently passing the required parameters to the installations so that the installations do not have to query the user for anything.
You will specify just one file location for the installation.  This location will be used as the root folder for the installation of all the products. The IM keeps all the products under the same folder in the Startup programs list and it creates only one listing in Add/Remove Programs menu. It will be listed as SolidWorks 2008 SP0.0 initially or higher depending on the service pack you are on.

Design Better!

Paul Niedermann