CAD Blog » CAD Software

Our CAD Software Expertise page has been updated to reflect the latest versions of software that we use.  This can be viewed here.

We are pleased to announce that we have upgraded our UGS NX software!

We understand, and have experienced ourselves that 1601 or 1603 Windows Installer errors have been occurring when installing SolidWorks 2010.  If your installation is stopping and failing to continue at around 12-13% then the following should fix this problem:

The error is linked to Microsoft Windows Installer 4.5 and is identified as ‘KB942288-v3′ (32 bit) or ‘KB942288-v4′ (64 bit).  Going into ‘Add/Remove Programs’, ensuring ‘Show Updates’ is ticked, then removing this installer will revert you back to Windows Installer 3.01.  When started again, the installation should run smoothly.  Please note that this only effects Windows XP and Windows Vista users.

A vacancy has opened up in the West Midlands for a Project Manager with experience in CATIA.  Please visit our CAD vacancies page to apply.

We have a vacancy for a designer/planner with experience in Autodesk Inventor and 3DS Max.  Please head over to our CAD vacancies page for further details.

Autodesk have today released Service Pack 1 for Inventor 2010, Autocad Mechanical 2010 and also Autocad Electrical 2010.

Both x32 and x64 versions are available for download.

Inventor 2010 – http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13713884&linkID=9242019

Autocad Mechanical 2010 – http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13842127&linkID=9240898

Autocad Electrical 2010 – http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13777929&linkID=9240738

These will be installed at Nova over the next couple of days. I’ll provide feedback as required.

A recent issue has come to light :

When trying to launch AutoCAD 2010 as a non-admin user or any other new user whose windows profile was created after AutoCad installation you may get the following errors/warnings:

- Unable to load profile file. Some profile information saved in last session may not be restored.
or/and
- Customization file load failed. File not found: acad
or/and
- Font not found: simplex, Specify Font for FONTALT
or/and
- Missing workspace ribbons

As discussed here – http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=6224260

I can confirm the following fix (as provided by Greg.Toews) works.

If the user’s registry profile is corrupt for some reason you can also just delete it and then start AutoCAD. AutoCAD will then create a default profile from scratch. (HKCU\Software\Autodesk\AutoCAD\Rnn.n\ACAD-nnnn:nnn)

SolidWorks have recently issued a patch (V2009 SP4.1) to fix the major issues encountered by SolidWorks 2009 (especially X64 edition) and Internet Explorer 8 installed on the same workstation.

So far, we’ve found no issues with the service pack and IE8 runs fine.

I’ll provide more feedback as and when if things change.

Useful CAD Tool for Autodesk Inventor 2010, allows features to be quickly re-named.

http://mfgcommunity.autodesk.com/blogs/blog/view/Rename_Features/

We are pleased to announce that we have recently upgraded our Autodesk CAD licences of Autocad & Inventor to the latest release of the series. As of 1st June 2009 we will now be running the latest 2010 suite, along with all previous releases. So far the installation and activation has gone on with no news to report, but we will keep you informed of our thoughts in the coming weeks.