This document provides general information about Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks® Corporation releases.
Refer to What's New, available from the Help menu, for descriptions of new functionality.
For a list of fixed SPRs, click here.
SolidWorks 2012 (including SolidWorks Simulation 2012, SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012, and SolidWorks Workgroup PDM 2012 products) is the LAST RELEASE that will install on Windows XP. SolidWorks 2013 (including SolidWorks Simulation 2013, SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013, and SolidWorks Workgroup PDM 2013 products) will NOT INSTALL on computers using Windows XP. For more information, visit System Requirements and Make Your Move to Windows 7.
Some antivirus software prevents proper installation of SolidWorks software. For additional information, see the Antivirus section of the Support Web site.
Attention Vista Users! Following Microsoft’s retirement of the Windows® Vista operating system in April of 2012, SolidWorks 2013 (including SolidWorks Simulation 2013, SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013, and SolidWorks Workgroup PDM 2013 products) is the LAST RELEASE that will install on Windows Vista. SolidWorks 2014 (including SolidWorks Simulation 2014, SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2014, and SolidWorks Workgroup PDM 2014 products) will NOT INSTALL on computers using Windows Vista. For more information, visit System Requirements and Make Your Move to Windows 7.
Following Microsoft’s retirement of the Windows® XP operating system in April of 2009, SolidWorks 2013 and SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013 will not install on Windows XP. See System Requirements for more information.
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2013 will be the last release to support the Windows Server® 2003 Operating System for the database, archive, and Web servers.
If you use Windows® 7 64-bit version, you should install Microsoft Hotfix KB 983396 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983396. This fixes problems when trying to embed Microsoft® Office 97-2003 Compatible Format documents into SolidWorks documents. This applies to all installed versions of Microsoft Office.
There are some limitations. See SolidWorks Help: Previous Release Interoperability.
The material classification DIN Steel (Cold Work Unalloyed) and the following materials are omitted from the SolidWorks DIN Materials database due to lack of verification:
SolidWorks Enterprise PDM 2012 supports SolidWorks 2012 and two previous versions. The combination of a newer version of SolidWorks and an older version of Enterprise PDM is not supported.
In SolidWorks 2012, top-level transparency overrides now work properly. Previously, if a component was set to transparent at the subassembly level, and then in a top-level assembly you tried to make it nontransparent, the override failed and the component continued to be shown as transparent. This incorrect behavior only occurred if the top-level assembly was first created in SolidWorks 2010 or SolidWorks 2011. In SolidWorks 2012, components that previously displayed as transparent might now be displayed as nontransparent because the top-level transparency override is being properly evaluated.
When you install the Russian version of SolidWorks 2012, the software generates two document templates for drawings: assemblies (GOST-assly.drw.drwdot) and parts (GOST-part drw.drwdot). These templates are located in the SolidWorks templates directory. For example, in Windows Vista or Windows 7, the templates are in C:\Program Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2012\templates, and in Windows XP, the templates are in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 2012\templates. These templates support the GOST drawing sheet formats.
SolidWorks 2012 includes new capabilities to detect dependencies between equations, and to detect circular references. The redesigned Equations dialog box includes an Automatic solve order option. This option identifies dependencies between equations, and orders them so that independent equations are evaluated before dependent equations. This can eliminate unnecessary rebuilds of the model.
When you create or edit equations, the software's improved syntax checking identifies equations containing circular references. These equations are highlighted in red, and a warning icon appears. Potential circular references are highlighted in yellow. Potential circular references occur when a reference dimension or driven dimension might depend on a dimension defined earlier in the FeatureManager design tree. By highlighting circular references, the software reduces the time to troubleshoot equations.
The instance numbers are not initially reflected in the external file. To resolve this discrepancy, update the external file by exporting the equations to the external file and rebuilding the model.
When you change a configured dimension and you use the Specify Configurations option, you must now always apply the change to the active configuration in addition to the other configurations you select. Previously, you could deselect the active configuration to exclude it from the change.
A new feature in SolidWorks Web Help automatically displays related SolidWorks Forum content for any Help topic. This feature lets you discover related content that already exists in the forums. You can also click Start a Discussion at the bottom of the page to ask a related question for the community to answer.
In SolidWorks, click Help and select Use SolidWorks Web Help. Start SolidWorks Help (). As you display help pages, the help content appears at the top of the page and Related SolidWorks Forum Content displays at the bottom of the page.
Response Graphs
After you run a nonlinear, dynamic, or transient thermal study, you can create response graphs of resultant forces versus time on selected geometric entities.
In the Result Force PropertyManager, click Response Graph. You can plot time history graphs for resultant and component values of reaction forces and moments, contact/friction forces, remote load interface loads, and heat power. The 2D plots show the results on the selected geometric entities and the entire model.
Contact Pressure
You can create contour plots of contact pressure results. In the Stress Plot PropertyManager, under Advanced Options, clear Show as vector plot.
To animate a contact pressure plot, under Results, right click its definition and click Animate.
Time Value in Nonlinear Studies
For nonlinear studies, you can enter the time value (in seconds) at which the selected result is plotted. If there are no results available for the requested time, results are plotted for the nearest available solution time step.
To open the DriveWorksXpress Tutorial in SolidWorks 2012:
The Sheet Metal chapter of the What’s New book describes how to create an insertion point in forming tools. This functionality is not available in SolidWorks 2012.
SolidWorks tutorials are only available as local help (.chm files). Help files (excluding tutorials) are available as Web help (used by default) or as local help files. These local files are excluded from service pack downloads to reduce download size and time. To ensure up-to-date tutorials and local help, you must download the files.
The installer places the updated tutorials and local help files in C:\SWDist\swHelp<language>\Files\lang\<language> and automatically copies them into your SolidWorks installation.
The SolidWorks 2012 Help incorrectly states that dimensions can no longer be linked. In fact, you can continue to create linked dimensions (also referred to as shared values or linked values). Existing links are also supported.
To link dimension values:
The new SolidWorks Costing tutorial covers machining costing and sheet metal costing. You can access this tutorial by clicking , and then clicking All SolidWorks Tutorials (Set 2).
After specific XP security updates are applied, SolidWorks compiled help files (.chm) cannot be accessed over a network (although they can be accessed from a disk or local installation). The Microsoft Knowledge Base article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896054/ includes a resolution to this problem.
There are some limitations. See SolidWorks Help: Previous Release Interoperability.
The SolidWorks software now correctly identifies mates that have missing references by showing them with an error symbol. These errors are correct, and should have been shown in previous releases. To repair the error, edit the mate and select the missing reference or references.
The Task Pane now includes a Forum tab, where you can access the SolidWorks Discussion Forum directly within SolidWorks. In the Task Pane, you can post to the Forum, see the most recent posts, browse by category, or search for a specific topic.
Service Pack 3.0 contains sustainability data for the following materials that were previously unsupported.
Due to a software issue, these materials will still appear as unsupported during the first SolidWorks session in which Sustainability is run. The second and subsequent SolidWorks sessions will allow Sustainability studies to use the new data.
A bug in the preview of mirrored instances has been fixed. In the Mirror Components PropertyManager, when you specify to create the mirrored component as a copy of the seed component (rather than an opposite-hand version) the software creates four possible orientations for the mirrored instance. The preview of the orientations was erroneously showing copies mirrored using the center of the component’s bounding box, while the actual copy is mirrored using the component’s center of mass. The preview has been corrected to show copies mirrored using the component’s center of mass.
In the Swept Flange PropertyManager, the Include path when flattening option has been renamed to Flatten along path. When you select Flatten along path, you can also select Material inside. Depending on the geometry, the flat pattern may only succeed when Material inside is selected or cleared. The flat pattern may fail for either choice of Material inside because of self-intersecting geometry on flattening.