Graphics Systems SolidNotes

Protect Your SolidWorks Serial Number

Have you ever worried that someone who has access to your PC for a short period of time may be able to steal your SolidWorks serial number?

SolidWorks provides an easy way to hide the serial number in the help about dialog while leaving just enough of it so that calls to support can be uniquely identified.  The part not hidden is used mostly for internal communication between SolidWorks corporate and the VAR and referred to as the Seat ID.  The only reason it's only used internally is because by the time you explain to someone what the Seat ID is you could have just asked for the whole serial number and figured it out yourself.  But if both parties know that you’re talking about the Seat ID it's not a problem.

Here's the solution:
1.  Make a new text file (name it something like 'Hide SW Serial Number'
2.  Paste this text into the file:
        Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

        [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SolidWorks\Security]
        "Serial Number Hide"="1"
3.  Save the file
4.  Change the file extension from .txt to .reg
5.  Make sure SolidWorks is closed and Double-click on the .reg file and click Yes when it asks you to continue and OK to confirm the changes have been made successfully

Here's the Result:

Process Explorer : A Powerful “Free” Application

Ever curious to know what processes SolidWorks is using? Need to find out if your Anti-Virus is running? Maybe you’re in search for a utility other than Task Manager? Sounds like a good time to discover the benefits of using Process Explorer.

Process Explorer provides you with a detailed visual representation of your systems' currently active processes.

 

It displays the processes' corresponding program icons, a command line fly-out, and it color-codes the processes' status.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Explorer also comes with a powerful search tool that shows you which processes have certain handles opened or DLLs loaded. You can even use this search utility to track down viruses and malware.

 

In the end it can provide some meaningful insight on how SolidWorks, Windows, and many other applications work. Download it for free from Microsoft TechNet's Windows Sysinternals : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

SolidWorks (All versions) Setup for XP and Vista: Pre Installation

1. Check to see what video driver you have loaded. There are several ways of doing this the easiest is to use SolidWorks Rx.  Under diagnostics it will tell you the driver version right at the top. If this is a new machine or you have uninstalled SolidWorks you can also check in the device manager under display adapters.  Double-click on your video card and then go to the driver tab.  You will see the driver version listed here along with some other info.
2. Check for the latest certified passing drivers for your video card on the SolidWorks webpage.  You can get there by going to http://www.solidworks.com and clicking on graphics cards under quick links or click here for a direct link.
3. If the driver you have is not the SAME(newer or older is bad) as the latest certified passing driver you'll need to DISABLE YOUR ANTIVIRUS and then load the latest certified passing driver.
4. Once your driver is loaded make sure and set the driver for SolidWorks.  This can make a big difference.  Even cards that supposedly pass can perform poorly and crash if they are not set to SolidWorks.
5. If you are using an LCD display (flat panel monitor, projector, or laptop) it is extreemly important that you set your resolution to the max.  If you're using a CRT monitor you can set the resolution to whatever you like as long as your video card supports it.  The reason for this is that an LCD display has a specific number of crystals and anything other than the native resolution(maximum) causes the computer to average the color for each pixel with the surrounding ones to get the color that will be displayed.  and in a display that is 1280x1024 at 60hz that's over 78.6 million calculations per second that would not have to happen if you just set your resolution to the maximum.  If you feel that the icons or text is too small there are other ways to fix that (much easier in Vista than XP, but can still be done in XP)
6. Set your virtual memory to start at 4050 and to a maximum of 4096.  To do this right-click on my computer and choose properties.  In Vista there is an extra step here: you will have to pick advanved system settings on the left.  You will then get a popup that says System Properties.  Select the Advanced tab and under performance choose settings(the top one).  You'll have to again choose the advanced tab.  Make sure processor scheduling is set to programs and then click the change button.  This is where you will need to set the Initial size to 4050 and the maximum size to 4096.  Make sure and press the set button before you click ok and you're all done here.
7. If you're running any antispyware and or antivirus kill the processes now if you haven't already done so(Windows defender also need to be killed). For instructions on how to do this read my other articles.
8. Install SolidWorks

Disabling Antivirus: How To

To date I've written several articles listing the processes that need to be killed in order to ensure a specific antivirus program is completely dead and will not interfere with your SolidWorks installation or service pack upgrade.  I plan to continue to post more of these as versions change and as I discover new software in use.

What I didn't write before was exactly how to kill all the hindering processes and services; I just told you what they were and left that for you to figure out.  So here's the how to:

1. Download Process Explorer (works with XP and Vista) and get it running.  Here's a direct link to the download file http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer.zip.  If you're not sure what it is and want to know more go here and you can see some screen shots and additional info.  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx  You must run process explorer as an admin user so you can see the Company Name column. This can easily be done with a right click, run as...
2. Once you have process explorer up and going take a look at the company name column and note every process that is associated with your antivirus and antispyware.  Also to double check, hover your mouse over each and every process and look at where the file is being executed from because the Company Name column is sometimes blank or not correct.  If it's from the folder where your antivirus is installed add that to your list of processes to kill.
3. As an optional step you can compare the files you've found to the files I have listed in my other articles to make sure you got'em all or let me know if you've found any new ones.
4. Once you have the list you can go through and right click on each one of the processes and choose Kill Process Tree.
5. If you can kill them all this way that's great but more often than not there will be one or more that will not die... for example rtvscan.exe with symantec antivirus and this is the one that really causes the problems so don't you dare ignore it and install anyways because you don't know how to kill it.  Keep reading... We'll get there
6. Right-click on my computer and choose manage... When Computer management comes up look to the bottom of the left-hand pane and expand Services and Applications and click on services.  Now in the right-hand pane scroll down untill you see the services associated with your antivirus software.  Be aware that the name of the service may not be the same as your antivirus software. For example McAfee's services are called Network Associates...  Once you've located the services, right click on them one at a time and choose Stop.  There will be anywhere from 3 to 8 services, which may or may not allready be stopped.  To verify, make sure and look at the Status column and confirm that it is empty.  It's important not to forget about your antispyware in this step.
7. If this did it and all the processes are stopped, you should now be able to kill that last of the processes, (step 4) if they're not already dead.  Be aware that just because the service is stopped does not necessairly mean the process is stopped, and in the end it's the process that we really need to kill.  If there is a process that will not stop, which again is more often that not, you'll need to keep reading...
8. For those processes that will not stop you will need to double click on the process and set it to disabled(most likely it is set to automatic before you change it).  at this point you will need to restart your computer and start from the top (step 4, assuming you still have the list you made in step 2).  The processes you already killed will be restarted when you reboot so you'll have to kill them again.
9. If for some reason you can't disable the service it is because you are not an administrator and you will need to log off and log back in as an admin to complete step 8.
10. Lastly after your Installation is complete make sure and remember to set whatever services you set to disabled back to automatic.

Can't get a license from SNL server?

Here is a call I took this week from a customer who was not able to get a license from his SNL server. I will go through the steps to troubleshoot this type of problem, and let you know how we resolved it.

1) Verify that the client PC is pointing to the correct license server
You can verify this by launching the SolidNetwork License Administrator and checking the Server List tab make sure you are pointing to the correct server and port (more on this later). This is also a good time to ping the server and make sure you can connect to it. The customer was able to connect to the server and had the correct port and server name.

2) From the SNL server verify that the server is giving out licenses
The next step is to go to the server and run the SolidNetwork License Administrator. Check to see if you have licenses available from License Usage tab. In this case he was getting a message "Could not get information from server" and had zero licenses available.

3) Check the log file for clues
So we can't get a license on the server. The dongle was in and the license file was read (did i forget to tell you to verify that part?) but we still can't get a license. On the Server Administration tab pick the View Log button, and look at the end of the log to see what's wrong. Here is what his log said.

14:04:14 (lmgrd) pid 8664
14:04:29 (lmgrd) The TCP port number in the license, 25734, is already in use.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Possible causes:
14:04:29 (lmgrd)    1) The license server manager (lmgrd) is already running for this license.
14:04:29 (lmgrd)    2) The OS has not "cleared" this port since lmgrd died.
14:04:29 (lmgrd)    3) Another process is using this port number (unlikely).
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Solutions:
14:04:29 (lmgrd)    1) Make sure lmgrd and all vendor daemons for this
14:04:29 (lmgrd)       license are not running.
14:04:29 (lmgrd)    2) You may have to wait for the OS to clear this port.
14:04:29 (lmgrd) Retrying for about 5 more minutes
14:04:47 (lmgrd) Still trying...
14:05:05 (lmgrd) Still trying...

So it looks like it can't start LMGRD (one of the processes needed to make this whole thing work). I also looked for the last time it worked in the log file.

17:20:45 (lmgrd) Shutting down SW_D pid=1848 because of signal 15
17:20:46 ((lmgrd)) Loop info: MT:0 VD_HB:20 reset:0clients:0fd's:0
17:20:46 (lmgrd) SW_D exited with status 58 ()
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Since this is an unknown status, license server
17:20:46 (lmgrd) manager (lmgrd) will attempt to re-start the vendor daemon.
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Starting vendor daemon at port 25735
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Using vendor daemon port 25735 specified in license file
17:20:46 (lmgrd) Can't connect to the license server system. Shutdown SW_D failed.

So we have "error 58" -- what is that all about? I talked to SolidWorks and this they told me that this is a odd error and very uncomon. The error is most likely because of Windows DEP (Data Excution Prevention) on the server. This is some mysterious program from Microsoft to protect itself from bad evil programs. So this program is most likely killing the SW_D process needed to run the SNL Manager. What do we do to fix this? Take a deep breath -- we're just about done.

1. Stop the SNL server from the Server Administration tab.
2. Launch the DEP program from Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance Settings -> Data Excution Prevention.
3. Add an exception for the two programs LRGRD.exe and SW_D.exe in the install directory for SolidNetWork License Administrator.
4. Check to see if either processess is still running in the Task Manager, and if it is, end the process.
5. Restart the service for the SNL manager and see if you have licenses.

Well, after all that, it worked. So DEP was killing a process and causing the licenses manager to stop working. We prevented it from hapening again, and got everything back up and running. Your case may be different, but these few steps will help you diganose the issue. If you get stumped, you can always call for help too.

SolidWorks and Windows Vista UPDATE

Are you waiting to run SolidWorks on Windows Vista?

For those of you itching to get a version of SolidWorks fully supported on Vista looks like it will be this summer. Solidworks has said that the first released version of SolidWorks for Vista won't be until 2008 is released sometime this summer.

SolidWorks 2007 however will still support Vista as a pre-release version, and we should see a pre-release 2 around the time SP4 is available for 2007. The pre-release version can be download from the SolidWorks web site if you are a subscription customer.

SolidWorks Service Pack 3 - Update

Well it's out, and so far so good! As you may remember SP3 changed how we authorize our SolidWorks. Say goodbye to registration codes and hello to Activation! Let me tell you what to expect. You will install the service pack just like you're used to, and it will run the same as before. During the install SolidWorks will magically add some digits to your serial number 8 to be exact. When you launch your SolidWorks for the first time after the install it will ask you to activate SolidWorks, just follow the on screen info and you’re done.

If you’re running 2007 and 2006 on the same machine you will need to get your new serial number (use help about SolidWorks) and write it down. Insert the 2006 CD or DVD and do a Modify to your installation. When you are prompted for the serial number make sure to enter the new serial number from 2007, next time you start 2006 you will have to activate it just like 2007.

Just as a side note look for SP3.1 to be out very soon, from what I hear it address a few issues that were missed in SP3. As far a SP3 I have not had any problems with it and give it my thumbs up.

SolidWorks and Windows Vista

What you need to know about SolidWorks 2007 and Vista
Information provided by SolidWorks Corporation

Support for Microsoft Windows Vista
Starting with 2007 SP3, SolidWorks will support Microsoft Windows Vista. This will be a Pre-Release version. First customer ship is planned for SP4.

What versions of Vista is supported
Currently only the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista are officially supported. Home Premium, Home Basic, and all X64 versions are not supported.

Other information you need to know

• SolidWorks 2007 Vista version is currently in pre-release
• Please note that the graphics card drivers for open GL products like SolidWorks are not equivalent to those available for Windows XP. For this reason SolidWorks 2007 Vista version currently runs only in Software OpenGL mode.
• For optimal performance, SolidWorks recommends that users continue to use SolidWorks 2007 running on Windows XP at this time.
• As new Vista OpenGL drivers become available, SolidWorks will perform certification tests on those drivers results of the driver tests for the SolidWorks Vista version will be posted at: http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/VideoCardTesting.html
• For those who must run SolidWorks on Windows Vista, please understand that while this version of SolidWorks is fully supported, graphic performance will be significantly slower than on Windows XP.

For now I would recommend to hold off and wait to run SolidWorks 2007 Vista version. Ask yourself this do you want to run the first version of SolidWorks for Vista on the first version of Microsoft Vista? If it was me I would wait for SolidWorks 2008 to switch to Vista.

SolidWorks 2007 SP3 and Product Activation

SolidWorks 2007 SP3 is coming soon, and with it a fundamental change in how standalone seats of SolidWorks are licensed. Last fall, SolidWorks announced it would go to industry-standard Product Activation in early 2007, and it is now upon us.

If you haven't heard about Product Activation from our 2007 Rollouts, our discussions in the last several SolidWorkouts or our webcasts, then you should go to http://www.solidworks.com/pages/services/productactivation/productactivation.html. You will have to use your customer login to view the page.

This is designed to be a transparent process and for the vast majority of customers, you will have no issues...you'll simply load SP3, use the Activate option in the Help menu and that's it. As always, we are just a phone call away if you need help.

AntiVirus 3: McAfee VirusScan Enterprise

FrameworkService.exe

Mcshield.exe

naPrdMgr.exe

shstat.exe

TBMon.exe

UpdaterUI.exe

VSTskMgr.exe

All of these processes should be killed before loading SolidWorks or updating a Service Pack.  These are the processes I have found to be associated with this specific version of this application.  All the processes here might not be running and there may be additional processes that are running depending on what options are chosen in the application.

If you have this same software but a different version and find that the processes names are the same or different or have any additional information to contribute please leave a comment on this message for the benefit of the group.

If you have software that is not listed in the blog and would like it added, you can email me directly at paul.niedfeldt@gxsc.com please put "SolidNotes - ANTIVIRUS" in the subject line.