Articles by: Andrew Lidstone, CSWE
A simple but very welcome improvement that has been made in SOLIDWORKS 2020 is the file type list in the Open and Save As dialog boxes. In previous releases, if you needed to open a non-SOLIDWORKS file, when opening the file type drop list, you…
A great addition to the user interface in SOLIDWORKS 2020 is the new animated tooltips that appear when you hover your cursor over some tools. This new functionality provides a quick overview of how a command works for new users, or if it’s one that…
More and more commonly, teams spread out across the globe are collaborating together on designs. SOLIDWORKS Data Management tools make it easy for designers to work together and share files, even if they are located on different continents. One side effect of this global collaboration…
A change has been made in SOLIDWORKS 2020 that simplifies the process for controlling both the Command Manager and Toolbars. In previous releases, to enable additional tabs for the Command Manager, you had to right-click directly on an existing tab to access a specific menu…
A great addition in SOLIDWORKS Visualize 2020 is the new SOLIDWORKS PDM menu. This menu provides better integration between Visualize and your data management tools. The menu will become active when a file stored in a SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional vault is opened in Visualize (this…
Starting with SOLIDWORKS PDM 2020, the SQL Server running the vault database will need to be upgraded to at least SQL Server 2014 SP3. This applies to both SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional (running SQL Standard) and SOLIDWORKS PDM Standard (running SQL Express). You can check which…
If you are planning on upgrading to the latest release of PDM then make sure you follow our SOLIDWORKS PDM Upgrade Checklist below: NOTE: Need to upgrade SOLIDWORKS? Then check out our SOLIDWORKS Upgrade Checklist Prepare (Recommended 1 week before upgrade) Download the full installation file…
To maximize PDM performance, the SQL database files should be located on the fastest hard drive available. If the mdf and ldf files for the database need to be relocated, this can be done using the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio. Before moving the files, ensure…
The loss of data, whether from hardware failure, software issues or simply human error is a constant concern for all designers. To help protect your data you may take advantage of Product Data Management software such as SOLIDWORKS PDM, but if you do not have…