Upgrade Assistant

If you are planning to migrate to a new version of SOLIDWORKS, you can use the Upgrade Assistant to test the migration of your parts, assemblies, and drawings.

You begin by selecting a subset of your parts, assemblies, and drawings to perform the comparison test. The Upgrade Assistant opens each file using both your installed production version of SOLIDWORKS and the installed SW version you are planning to migrate to. It runs a series of tests comparing each file, and generates a comparison report including performance changes, rebuild errors, drawing pixel changes (color and position), and stability problems.

The following differences are highlighted if detected in the current version:
Performance changes A full rebuild of the model is more than 10% slower.
File size The file has grown by more than 10%.
Drawing pixel changes One or more pixels in a snapshot of the drawing have changed color or position.
Stability problems Opening or rebuilding a model or drawing is causing an application fail.
Volume The volume varies by 0.4%.
Center of Mass Comparison The Upgrade Assistant marks the comparison as failed and report a difference if the following empirical formula returns a value greater than 0.025: 10,000 * ( (CMx_new - CMx_baseline)^2 + (CMy_new - CMy_baseline)^2 + (CMz_new - CMz_baseline)^2) ) / Area_baseline

If no critical errors are found, you can be confident that your data will migrate successfully to the target version. If critical errors are found, send a copy of the comparison report to your reseller for further assistance.

To open the Upgrade Assistant, open SOLIDWORKS Task Scheduler from the Windows Start menu, and click All Programs > SOLIDWORKS <version> > SOLIDWORKS Tools > SOLIDWORKS Task Scheduler. Then on the sidebar, click Upgrade Assistant .