warning about environments with Windows 7 desktops and Windows 2008r2 servers

[_Lemmy_]

To whom it may concern,

My name is XXXXXX I am the IT Director for XXXXXXXXX based out of our head office in Toronto. We are an Electrical and Mechanical engineering firm operating across Canada and the Middle East. Our account ID is XXXXXXXX.

I am reaching out to you today because of the difficulties we are having obtaining clear answers and clear timelines from your support services regarding a very serious problem with your MEP 2012 suite. I am hoping you will be able to help us resolve this critical problem.

Recap of situation
Towards the end of 2010, we migrated our main file server to a new installation of Windows 2008r2. We then started migrating our user base to Windows 7 64 bit (needed for MEP operations with increased RAM). Almost immediately, we started observing odd network traffic and processor usage patterns on our file server. While minimal at first, the traffic and processor load grew on the server, even if the general user base had not increased, and the drawings being worked on had not changed.

As we progressed with our migration from Autocad to MEP 2012, the pattern became more pronounced. We finally were able to track the issue down to a problem where the MEP application running on a Windows 7 desktop working with a file from a 2008r2 server does not release the network connection. By using network tracking tools on our servers, we were able to identify that clients running Windows 7 did not release the network stream once the file was opened.

As you can imagine, this has a direct effect on production. The servers running our drawings directory have had to be upgraded at great costs to deal with the problem. Even with the upgrade, we are oversubscribing what the server can provide.

I know that you are aware of the problem, and must have been for some time. There are several internet entries documenting this behavior and we are aware of other large engineering companies having the same problems.

It is puzzling that a company like Autodesk would release a product like MEP that is not capable of properly operating in a high performance environment using SMBv2. Windows 2008r2 was available as early as July 2009, and Windows 7 was available at about the same time. Developer versions were available much before that. Should we assume Autodesk released software knowing it did not properly work?

We recently started working with XXXXXXX out of the Toronto office to try and resolve this. He has been helpful, but the answers we are getting back from your development team are unsatisfactory.

Specifically, we are looking for the following:

• A clear timeline as to when a fix for this situation will be available.
• A fix that can be applied via a patch or an update. We have absolutely no interest and no intention of doing a full roll out of a new version to 100+ workstations to fix your problem.

I look forward to hearing from you as to how we can work to address Autodesk’s technical problems with the MEP package.