Tuesday December 10, 2013 at 8:34pm
You may have seen warnings during the last couple of SOLIDWORKS versions about the support for Windows XP and Windows Vista ceasing, so it may come as a shock when attempting to install on a Windows 7 computer that you are hit with the following error:
This has cropped up on the support desk over the last couple of weeks, and in all cases the user was using a Windows 7 operating system- so this message made no sense. On further inspection, it was actually due to a Windows option that was brought in during the XP to Windows 7 transition allowing users to run programs in an emulator mode. The file in question that needed changing is the "Setup.exe" file that resides typically under the path:
C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\SOLIDWORKS Downloads\SOLIDWORKS 20xx x64 SPxx
Right clicking on the setup.exe file allows you to view its Properties
And then there is the tab for Compatibility.
In here the solution was to check to box to run in compatibility mode and then explicitly specify Windows 7. This allowed the setup file to launch as expected.
By Adam Hartles
Training Manager