Pros and cons of upgrading from 2008 to 2010

[Anonymous]

We currently have IV (Suite and Pro) and AutoCAD 2008 installed on ~20 computers and I've been tasked with evaluating the latest release to determine if an upgrade would be beneficial. Can any of you with experience with 2010 provide some feedback on the new release? I need to put together some sort of matrix of the pros and cons of upgrading.

From the limited amount that I've played with 2010 it seems like the FEA has improved and native translation from other CAD packages is built in. The main drawbacks are mostly logistical - i.e. installing it on all the machines and migrating all the old stuff to the new version, getting used to the new interface, etc - but it also seems to use more memory than older versions. What is everyone else's opinion?

Also, how well does the dynamic licensing work? We have Pro installed on a few machines and would prefer to always use those licenses on those machines to free up the standard licenses for everyone else. Is there any way to turn off the dynamic licenses?

[Anonymous]

I'd never go back to 2008. There's just so much more you can do with 2010.
Here's just a few:

Sheet Metal - Vastly Improved
Frame Generator - Now easy to add custom shapes.
Sketching - New Sketch tools and options. Silhouette Curve for parting
lines, etc.
Surfaces - Improved.
Translations - Both Improved and more Flexible with new translators.
Assemblies - Petter performance options, Patterns of Patterns, Shrinkwrap,
User defines folders, Assembly restructure inprovements.
BOM - Improvements
Content Center Improvements, Desktop Content for single users, Move Library
content, Family Table View, Edit family tambles in Excel.
Design Accelerator - Cylindrical Cams, Spur Gear improvements and others
Drawing Annotations - Spline dimensioning. User defined symbol folders,
Balloon snap and others
User Coordinate System (UCS), XYZ Axis labels Enhanced measure

If this is not enough, go to New Features Workshop in 2010 for much much
more.

Things to consider:

1. 2010 will not be productive with less that 2 GB RAM ( 2008 was not
either). If you are working with really complex parts (think engine block
castings, etc) or very large assemblies, then 64 bit with a minimum of 8 GB
is the only way to go.

2. Make sure that current graphics cards are up to the challenge of running
the ribbon. Update the drivers, etc.

3. Regarding License Manager: Create deployments for both Suite and Pro
versions. Install Suite for Suite only users. Dynamic licensing works like
this: If a user accesses a Pro feature, then he will "own" a Pro license
until he exits Inventor and goes back in. This is no different than previous
versions. Initially, all users start out in "Suite" mode until a Pro feature
is used.

4. Change is inevitable. If properly implemented and trained, IV2010 WILL
make you far more productive than 2008.


--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr. Tel. (260) 399-6615
AIP 2008 SP3, AIP 2009-SP2, IV2010 ProPcCillin AV
AMD 64 x2 3.0 Ghz, 8GB RAM GeForce 9800GT 512MB
XP Pro SP3, XP Pro64 SP2, Windows XP Silver Theme
http://teknigroup.com

[karthur1]

As far as installing on the multiple computers, look at creating a deployment. You place this deployment image in a location that all the workstations can access, then just run the deployment and it installs the software on the workstations. If they all have different license numbers, you can change that after the software is installed on each station.
Are you using Vault? If you are and you are running full MS SQL 2000, then you will have to upgrade your SQL also. We are having to do this now, and it is going to co$t a bundle to do this.

[Anonymous]

There are some issues with creating 2010 deployments IF you
are including AutoCAD Mechanical in the deployment See this link:

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href="http://beinginventive.typepad.com/being-inventive/2009/06/creategpomsi-error-while-creating-d...

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--
Dennis Jeffrey, Autodesk Inventor Certified
Expert
Autodesk Manufacturing Implementation Certified
Expert.
Instructor/Author/Sr. App Engr. Tel. (260) 399-6615
AIP 2008 SP3,
AIP 2009-SP2, IV2010 ProPcCillin AV
AMD 64 x2 3.0 Ghz, 8GB RAM GeForce 9800GT
512MB
XP Pro SP3, XP Pro64 SP2,  Windows XP Silver Theme

href="http://teknigroup.com">http://teknigroup.com

[Anonymous]

Outstanding, this is exactly the kind of information I was hoping for! Thanks guys!

[JDMather]

In addition to Dennis' list

multibody parts
sketch blocks
some plastics tools (can be used for more than plastics, like simplified bosses creation)
assembly browser folders

I'm sure many other things as well. 2010 is by far the most significant release yet in additional features over one release from the next.

Seems to me there is a list somewhere on the Autodesk website that a Google search should turn up.