I upgraded from 2020 SP5 to 2022 SP2 this afternoon. This is my feedback after about 2 hours.
The program seems more responsive rotating assemblies and in general. I’ve tried having Enhanced Graphics on and off and I can’t see any difference. At least it is now usable, which for me, it wasn’t in the past.
That’s where the good comments end.
In 2 hours it hung once, which I was able to somehow recover from by killing the task in task manager. Later it crashed, hard.
When I’m working in the program, it seems quicker. Saving, at times, was back to 2019 level. Lots of spinny circle. Lots of “Solidworks is Busy.” I’m hoping this is related to the PDM upgrade, and speed will improve once my local cache is up to date. That may be wishful thinking.
There’s a couple of very minor things, which may or may not be correctable with a setting.
2020 had it’s issues, but for the most part was rather stable. I’m disappointed to have 2 problems in the little time I’ve been using 2022.
TLDR: It’s solidworks. Some things will be better, some worse. Spin the cylinder, pull the trigger and hope for the best.
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As I think about it, the time it hung I think there was a window open behind solidworks that I couldn’t see. Killing the task with task manager closed that window and SW would respond again.
Thanks for the advice on the video card. I will check on that.
After another hour this morning I’m going back to 2020. It’s like 2019 all over again. I spend more time staring at a spinny circle than I do getting any work done.
To be honest, I have no good reason to upgrade. If we hadn’t decided to install PDM, I would still be off license and 2022 wouldn’t even be an option.
I was reluctant to perform the upgrade in the first place, but there are some new features in 2022 I wanted to investigate. There are no new features that are revolutionary, and even though 2020 has a few issues that affect me, I know what they are and how to work around them. I wasn’t going to invest extra time upgrading all of my files, just in case I decided to go back. If the reason for my slowness was that all of my files are still 2020, so be it.
It was close enough to what I experienced after one of the 2019 service packs that I started having PTSD and couldn’t get that S*** off of my computer quick enough. I know others didn’t have the same experience, but for me I lost about 1/3rd of my productivity staring at “solidworks is busy.” I have no desire to do that to myself again.
There is one regression I found right away. (Search for SPR 1230978.)
In 2020 if you do a concentric mate, a 2nd set of breadcrumbs appears to allow you to flip the mate or lock the rotation. According to the SPR, that option disappears immediately after it appears. I know some people hated this feature, but I had become used to it and miss it, despite the extra clicks it requires at times.
(Kudos to the support tech at Trimech who actually did the work and attached my sn to the SPR. My previous VAR would have done less than the bare minimum.)
I had the exact same problem from SP1 and all the time I thought it’s a side effect of using Windows 11.
I never talked to our VAR because I was sure the first thing they would say would be “SW doesn’t support windows 11”.
As a work around I ticked the following checkbox in customize.
It prevents breadcrumbs disappear.
I was looking through the release notes for v2022 and this turd jumped out:
“Reactivating SOLIDWORKS Perpetual Licenses
Starting with SOLIDWORKS 2022, commercial and educational customers who have purchased perpetual licenses of SOLIDWORKS products will be required to reactivate their licenses once a year. The licenses never expire but need to be reactivated periodically regardless of whether or not customers remain on subscription. Term licenses and student licenses are not affected.”
That doesn’t change anything. They make clear that “[perpetual] licenses never expire”. We have no reason to think that the company would ever change that especially after they change the license manager to require reactivation once a year.
It stinks but seems to be the way everyone is going…not just CAD. Most software these days is fairly mature and upgrades aren’t as needed unlike the 90s and early 2000s. I guess it’s inevitable. SolidWorks, Solidedge, and NX are the hold outs.
We are having the same discussion at our workplace. Developing software costs money. It’s hard to pay for developing your software if the customer only pays for it once and uses it for years / decades.
I don’t think anyone is begrudging their need to make money. We all have to eat.
The part that sticks in your craw is when arbitrary, antagonistic decisions are made, like doing away with the 2 activation license, the license server, etc, that seem to be money grubbing bean counters at work.
The elimination of the free DraftSight version was particularly onerous. I get it, it’s not going to be free forever. Saying that, let me know and I would have gladly paid the then $50 cost for the low end version. Instead, it’s arbitrarily turned it off without notice, the perpetual license was eliminated and it’s now a subscription at a rate that I’m not going to fork out for something I used 2-3 times a year. Nice work guys. My VAR was extremely embarrassed about the whole thing.
And then to spend the kind of coin they are spending on the entire 3DExperience website, it’s quite frustrating.
The beauty of the 3dExperience website is it’s broken and they know it. My interaction to get my 3DExperience account unlocked highlighted the frustration that middle level folks at Dassault have as well.
I’m coming to a point where I’m going to have to make a decision as to whether or not I’m going to keep my subscription active.
Unless things get straightened out pretty quickly over in Dassault-ville, it’s prolly not going to happen. I’ve owned a seat of SolidWorks since '95, so some 17 years I’ve paid my annual stipend. It’s just I really get the feeling they don’t care about individual users any longer…
Just my perception, but when someone identifies a need or demand then develops the service or product that does a good job of fulfilling that existing need they will not be able to keep up and there will be plenty of revenue. There is rapid growth and budgets aren’t very tight. Once others jump in and start under cutting then the race is on to add features to fill every nook and cranny of the potential need or demand. As burden and overhead continue to grow and the needs/demands are met a crunch is inevitable. It seems there is never a road map at this point to reduce the ballooning and trim down to a maintenance crew to support the product. That’s just bad business right? By now there’s investors and other forces that need to see growth and profits while the natural cycle is demanding the opposite. This is where they start forcing unwanted products and using mechanisms to keep customers on the hook buying unwanted stuff. Create more features whether there’s really a demand for it and marketing will convince the customers (not users but the PO signers) with fear tactics that if they don’t purchase the new product, they’re falling behind the competition and will be out in the next 5-10 years. Chaos ensues while some person in the back is recognizing a demand and makes a tool to fulfill the demand then starts to sell it.
