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.

This content applies to SOLIDWORKS only.

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 that 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, from the Windows Start menu, go to SOLIDWORKS Tools version > SOLIDWORKS Task Scheduler version. Then on the sidebar, click Upgrade Assistant .

Using the Upgrade Assistant

Before testing all of your files with the Upgrade Assistant, select a small, representative sample. You can use the duration of that sample batch to estimate how long it will take to test files on your hardware.

This content applies to SOLIDWORKS only.

To run a comparison using the Upgrade Assistant:

  1. Click Upgrade Assistant on the sidebar, or click Tasks > Upgrade Assistant.
  2. In the Upgrade Assistant dialog box, enter a Task title and select the Earlier version of SOLIDWORKS from the list to test against the latest version of SOLIDWORKS that you have installed.
  3. Under Task files or folders, click Add File or Add Folder and select the SOLIDWORKS documents to test.
  4. Under Task Schedule, set:
    1. Running mode.
      Specifies how often the task runs. Select Once, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
    2. Start time.
    3. Start date.
  5. Click Options to include configurations and create a zip archive of the failed files.
    You can send the zip archive to your reseller to share the results of the test.
  6. Click Advanced to choose a working folder for the test files, and set a time out period for renderings and animation tasks. You can also specify to back up test files.
  7. In the Upgrade Assistant dialog box, click Finish to run the comparison test.

Setting Upgrade Assistant Options

You can include configurations in the comparison test and create a zip archive of the failed tests. You can send the archive file to your reseller to share the results.

This content applies to SOLIDWORKS only.

To set the Upgrade Assistant options:

  1. Select Check all configurations to generate a detailed report or Check active configurations only to reduce the time required to run the tests.
  2. Create a zip archive of the failed files. By default, the Save Upgrade Assistant log with failed files to folder option stores the files in your Windows temp folder. Click Browse to specify a different folder location.
    Assembly and drawing references are not included with problem files in the archive because of the potential size of the data. You can use SOLIDWORKS Rx to package the complete data set to report to your reseller.
  3. Click OK and return to the Upgrade Assistant dialog box.