TWO VERSIONS OF INVENTOR INSTALLED ON THE SAME WORKSTATION

[m.granata]

Hello,

I am currently running Autodesk Product Design Suite Premium 2014 on my workstation with Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit.  Since my Algor V22 FEA software is several years old and cannot directly communicate with Inventor Professional 2014.  My question is this; can I install my older Autodesk Inventor Suite 2009 on the same machine with Autodesk Product Design Suite Premium 2014 and Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit?  If so, will both my Autodesk Product Design Suite Premium 2014 and Autodesk Inventor Suite 2009 coexist and operate correctly?

My thought is to create the models needed for FEA in Inventor 2009 then after the FEA work is finished migrate the model file to Inventor Professional 2014 being certain to leave a back-up copy in Inventor 2009 format.  Then finish the project using Inventor Professional 2014.

Best Regards,

Mike 

[JDMather]

I have always had multiple versions on my machine, but I anticpate all sorts of problems with your description.

1. Inventor 2009 is not 64-bit application.

2. Are you actually running Algor on that machine?

I suspect your easiest solution is to model in 2014 and save as STEP for the Algor analysis.

[blair]

I suspect that your version of Algor v22 will be 32 bit as well if you were running both IV2009 and v22 on the same machine. Algor did have 64 bit versions available back then, if they both resided on the same system it would be the 32 bit version.

I've used Algor since 1994, I have you been able to contact anyone to get new authorization numbers it you install Algor on a new machine since they've been purchased by Autodesk a number of years ago, or are using their License Manager?

I think the JD's recomendation of exporting your IV2014 to a neutral format and importing into your IV2009 version or opening the neutral format directly into Algor should work. If you have the pluging to work with Inventor files, you should be able to open neutral format IGES and STL as well.

[m.granata]

Hi,

Blair:  The Algor V22 I am using is 64 bit.  Because of its age it was designed for Windows XP 64 bit.  But it runs fine on Windows 7 64 bit as long as I don't use the Windows 7 Aero Themes.  As far as rehosting the license.  The "My Account" portion of the old Algor website is still up but you cannot rehost your license online.  I rehosted the license by contacting Autodesk's Simulation support via email and they emailed me a new license file in a few hours.  I provided them my Algor license number and disk ID information from the Workstation I needed to install Algor on.

I currently import step files into my Algor which works well with one exception.  Upon importing a step file, circular surfaces get divided in a manner I have no control of.  This affects the meshing in a negative manner at times since when meshing nodes are placed on edges regardless if they are geomtric edges or the edges created by the divisions of circular shapes.  On some models I spend a significant ammount of time refining the mesh and model to eliminate sinularities in the FEA results.  I was hoping a direct .ipt or .iam file import from a compatible version of Inventor would elliviate that issue.  In the interim, I'll use step file formats since they are working better than iges, sat, or stl formats.

I'm trying a 30 day trial version of Simulation 2013 from my dealer.  It imports step files without the divisions of circular surfaces which makes meshing easier.  Other than that, the main differences I see so far are the GUI.  The dialog boxes and features (that I use) don't look or seem to be much different than in Algor V22.  Autodesk has fixed multiple load case analysis when the model contains surface contacts which is nice.  I'd like to upgrade but the cost is extremely high and I don't like the idea of a rental program.  At this time I cannot charge my clients enough to justify the upgrade cost.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Best Regards