SW 2020 SP5 or 2021 SP1 on Windows 11?

SOLIDWORKS SW General
1

Does somebody has experience on installing these on Windows 11?
For some reason, they are the versions we have available and we have a new computer with Windows 11.
We tried to install 2020 SP5 on it but it got stuck. Before spending too much time on this, what should I spend my efforts on?

Thanks!

2

They are not compatible with Windows 11. If I am not mistaken, SolidWorks 2022 was the first version to be compatible with Windows 11

Edit: Indeed
image.png
https://www.solidworks.com/support/system-requirements

3

Thanks Alex,
I wrote the question in a hurry and it’s not complete…
We have a computer that was upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. SolidWorks 2020 SP5 was already installed and continues to work without problems it seems.
On a new computer that we received with Windows 11, the SW2020 installation failed.
I’m wondering if it’s worth my time to try to get this to work or go to SW 2021 SP1, which I hesitate to do because SP1…

4

Have you tried installing it in “Compatibility Mode”?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/make-older-apps-or-programs-compatible-with-windows-783d6dd7-b439-bdb0-0490-54eea0f45938

Did you receive any kind of error message when it failed?

5

Good idea, I’ll try the compatibililty mode!
No error message, only a big empty white window at some point.

Thanks!

6

I’m still not convinced that SW 2023 is compatible with Windows 11. Whoops, it crashed three times while I was typing that.

7

In the Compatibility modes options I have only Windows 8 or older… and the SolidWorks installer says that’s too old.
Running normally, without the compatibility mode option, there’s a message saying that a reboot is pending from a previous installation… the computer has been rebooted several times since the last attempt.

8

The reboot warning is normal, and a false alarm. I’ve never had an issue ignoring it.

9

do you need pdm?
pdm client is likely going to break with win11 23H2 or the explorer update. it need an hotfix to replace the pdm dll on client side.
in that case you are left with the old control panel trick to start the old explorer as the hf is not available for versions before sw2022.
also pdm Client is a lot more unstable under win11 with a lot of new bugs like the ghost login screen…

10

Thanks for the info, very valuable!
But we don’t use PDM here.