Please note that you will need to have access to the SolidWorks Customer Portal in order to participate.  This is your chance to see what’s new in the upcoming version, get a jump start on any migration issues, and to help SolidWorks by reporting any issues that you may have.

Are you going to be participating in the Beta Program?  Let us know!

There is an RSS feed so that you can get all the posts pushed to you, and Ben is also working on a SolidWorks add-in so that you can post and answer to SolidJott from right within the SolidWorks Task Pane!  Be sure to check the SolidJott site for more information, as this add-in will be going into Beta before long.

(Note that Matt over at SolidWorks Legion has recently published an article dealing with this same issue in his SolidWorks Performance Blitz! series while I was on travel and in the middle of writing this one.)

Windows uses a pagefile, which is just a temporary file that Windows writes information from memory into when it needs more room.  The performance issue is that by default, Windows manages the pagefile by growing or shrinking it as demand comes and goes.  After a while, the pagefile becomes fragmented as it grows due to other data being written on the adjacent tracks of the disk.

To keep the pagefile from becoming fragmented, you should set the pagefile initial and maximum sizes to the same values, so that the pagefile is in one contiguous space on the disk.  I have seen several different rules of thumb for what values to use, from 1.5X to 4X your system memory.  Personally, I use 2X, and that works fine for me, but YMMV.

You can follow the steps below to tweak your pagefile to your liking:

1. Right-click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties".
2. Go to the "Advanced" tab and click "Settings" under the "Performance" section.
3. Go to the "Advanced" tab and click "Change" under the "Virtual memory "section.
4. Select the radio button for "Custom size" and set both the Initial and Maximum sizes to the same value, as shown in the image below:

Note that the sizes are in MB, so if you have say, 4GB system RAM, you would enter 8192 MB for 2X system memory (2 X (4 X 1024)).

Another item of note is that if you have 2 or more separate physical disks (ideally on different channels), you can also help increase performance by splitting your pagefile across them.  This enables you to write to each disk channel at once, increasing file-swapping speed.

If you have been running Windows with the "System managed size" option selected, chances are very good that your pagefile is fragmented.  When I perform this tweak on a system that has been up for a while, I will choose the option "No paging file", reboot, defrag, and then set the custom sizes as shown above.  If you have a large enough disk with empty space, this step is probably not needed, but it doesn’t hurt.

I hope this tip helps you tweak your system to improve your SolidWorks experience!

So if you think you have a screwed up neutral format file, check out his post and send him your files!

Sign up today to participate in the SolidWorks 2008 Beta program. We have added over 200 enhancements to SolidWorks 2008 to help designers better Focus on Design, and not CAD, reuse their existing Designs to save time and design with confidence. This year, for the first time ever, the grand prize winner will receive a full commercial copy of SolidWorks 2008 Office Premium and a one year subscription service.

I have already signed up, and if you’re a subscription customer, I hope you will too.  The more eyes and hands that are on it, the more (hopefully) stable it will be when it’s released!

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/mattlombard/2007/02/upgrade_to_vist.html
http://www.rickyjordan.net/2007/02/vistaand_more_v.html
http://podcasts.ddicad.com/index.php?post_id=182878

Here are a few links from the SolidWorks website for reference:

http://www.solidworks.com/pages/programs/beta/vista/documents/SW_Vista_rev4_QuickFact_ENG.pdf
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/products/vista/documents/vista_e_x_solidworks.pdf
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/partners/login/gold/documents/VistaFINAL11-29-06.doc

*UPDATE – April 2, 2007*

I found this funny image about upgrading from Windows XP to Vista, and thought I would add it here:

Click pic to make it larger

If you create an auxillary view and then drag that view to a new sheet, the definition line gets hidden (I believe this is a bug – it should keep the definition shown by default).  To turn it back on, simply click on the auxillary view, and in the Property Manager, check the "Arrow" box as shown below: