Upgrading from C3D 2011 to C3D 2012 Tips?

[Jay_B]

We are looking at upgrading several users from 2011/WIN7/64bit to 2012/WIN7/64bit.

I'm a fairly new user of Civil 3D & have been using it for 18 months & have never had to deal with upgrading.

What's the recommended procedure for updating current projects that are mid stream in 2011 to 2012?

I've looked in the Autocad support diocumentation & online a bit & haven't found any useful info on the topic.

Does anyone have any tips or now of any good resources that offer tips on moving forward to the next version while a project is allready underway?

Also I manage our C3D network library files so I'm wondering if anything is needed beyond opening & saving our dwt's & dwg's to the 2012 version? Additionally do the Fig. Pref. DB, LW Code Set & survey settings need any updating done with them?

Any help is appreciated.

Jay

[wfberry]

Hopefully, you already know that once the projects are upgraded to 2012 you cannot go back to 2011.  So leave both versions on your computers or some combination to allow for a breakdown in your methods.  Frankly it would probably be beneficial if you completed the 2011 projects and started new projects with 2012. 

Bill

(I will probably get ripped for speaking with a "forked tongue"!)

[neilyj666]

I agree that you should complete current projects in 2011 and only do new ones in 2012 (this is the way I approach it)

[Sinc]

For the most part, you can just upgrade any 2011 project to 2012.  I forget now if you need to upgrade your Survey Databases from 2010 to 2011, or 2011 to 2012...  I think it was the jump from 2010 to 2011 that forced you to migrate your Survey Databases, but I can't remember for sure (these yearly releases are killer, as far as remembering all the details, and the longer you use C3D, the harder it gets to remember what changed from release to release).

For the most part, 2012 works better than 2011.  The biggest problem I've noticed is that there are some Label Styles that get "corrupted" in the upgrade, and lose their links.  As one example, I've seen Parcel Curve labels lose the connection to the "Segment Chord Direction" property, and you have to go into the Label Style Composer and fix them.  This is relatively easy to do, just annoying.

When it comes to opening 2010 and earlier in 2012, you can run into more problems, since there were significant changes in Alignments made in 2011.  You can also run into problems if you've created any custom Subassemblies or custom Reports.

[mathewkol]

Leaving projects in 2011 may be beneficial in some ways but you're missing out on the new features. If you're not going to use the new features then I guess it doesn't matter. However there were some significant performance boosts with 2012 SP1.

I always found that I preferred to upgrade. Yes, there are a couple of hickups but they are usually minor (usually) and I found I could work through them relatively easily.

[mathewkol]

I forgot to mention. Another problem in a mixed environment is that it's not that tough to accidentally open a 2011 file with 2012 and save it. Then you're hooped.

[Jay_B]

Thanks for all of your replies.

Yes I'm aware of the move forward but not backward C3D caveat so I agree with both viewpoints of finishing 2011 projects in 2011 & upgrade everyone vs. convert existing 2011 projects to 2012 to some degree.

If all our users were advanced it wouldn't be as big of risk to run both releases for a time period but we probably have a greater risk in mixing versions (not to mention what fun it is to support 2 networked sets of standards for 10 offices).

A lot of the feedback posted here sounds a lot like some of our internal discussions & it seems were leaning more toward flipping the switch to 2012 more so then keeping both.

Standards wise Are there any other things I might consider other than rebuilding my profiles from within 2012 & saving all templates to the 2012 version?

Also any feedback on what exactly needs to happen with a job in progress to convert from 2011 to 2012?

Is it as simple as opening/saving each dwg in project to 2012?

Thanks,

Jay

[Anonymous]

After testing the new software with a few people who can be trusted to keep each project in the right file version, we upgrade the entire company in one fell swoop over a weekend (IT develops a routine that pretty much does it automatically).  We send out warning emails the week before so people get ready.  Honestly, the programs are similar enough between versions that a lot of people dont even notice.  As a precaution we send out an email telling them to open and save each file that morning to be sure the whole project gets on one version.  (Datarefs don't work well between versions.)

I can't imagine trying to finish old projects in one version and new projects in another.  People will invariably save in the wrong version, forcing projects forward to the new one.  In my mind it's just better to do it all at once.  Especially if you're doing 2011->2012, that went seamlessly in our office.

[Anonymous]

About the standards?  You can open and save your templates in 2012.  The only issue is you don't get the new styles with the new features, but 2012 is basically just a service pack so you won't miss anything.  2013's going to be a bigger issue with the pressure pipe and railway introductions, so we'll have to actually edit our templates on libraries to take advantage of that.

[Sinc]

There is third-party support that can help with this issue:

http://www.quuxsoft.com/SincpacC3D_Help/GI_OldVersionLock.htm

Not sure why Autodesk hasn't implemented anything like this yet...  We've had it for about four years now.  You can't always just upgrade every project, if you're collaborating with other companies (or even other offices within your company, since not everybody upgrades at the same time).  These yearly incompatible upgrades are one of the worst aspects of using Civil 3D.

And even moving projects forward from release to release can cause lots of problems...  We've encountered many of them over the years.  Some transitions are worse than others, but there always seem to some level of problems involved in upgrading projects.  We hate these yearly incompatible releases, which provide minimal changes from release to release.

[wfberry]

One of the things that I looked for when I brought my 2012 template to 2013 was that the pressure pipe and the railway cant was in the template when opened up in 2013.  I don't anticipate needing the cant but it was there.

Bill

[Jay_B]

jmatthei,

If I want to "preserve" all of the new styles & functionality of the 2012 release dwt what route do I need to take here?

Can insert an old dwt as a block or the likes? I know I can drag/drop styles etc., but that would be quite the daunting task for all of our dwt's!

Isn't there an added style import tool in C3d 2012? Thinking maybe I could find out what the newly added styles are & just import those into my saveas 2011_dwt to 2012_dwt?

I just wish there was more info/tools available from Autodesk re: a detailed recommended upgrade process, given the yearly upgrade non-backward compatible force feeding we're all forced to work with! 

Thanks,

Jay