System Requirements

System hardware and operating system requirements for SolidWorks products.

Supported Microsoft Windows® Operating Systems (9)

  SW 2008  

  SW 2009  

 

SW 2010

 
Windows 7 32-bit (2) 

No

No

Yes

Windows 7 64-bit (2)  

No

No

Yes

Vista 32-bit (3)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Vista 64-bit (3)(4)

Yes

Yes

Yes

XP Professional 32-bit (5)(1) 

Yes

Yes

Yes

XP Professional 64-bit (4)(1)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Computer and Software Requirements:

 RAM

  • Minimum: 1GB RAM
  • Recommended: 2GB RAM
  • Very large models: X64 processor and Operating System with 6GB or more of RAM when system resources exceed the 2GB limit of a 32-bit OS architecture.

 Video

  • A certified OpenGL workstation graphics card and driver.
    For a listing of tested and certified graphics cards and driver combinations visit the Graphics Cards and Systems web site.

 CPU

  • Intel® or AMD® processors (7)
  • eDrawings® is supported on Apple Macintosh®-based machines (6) 

 Other

  • Mouse or other pointing device
  • DVD drive
  • Microsoft Excel 2002, 2003, or 2007
  • Internet Explorer version 6.x or higher
  • Adobe Acrobat version 7.0.7 or higher
 Network
  • SolidWorks is tested only with Microsoft's Windows Networking and Active Directory network environments (8)


SNL (SolidWorks Network License) Server Requirements:

  • USB or parallel port required (prior to SolidWorks 2010)
  • Virtual servers are not supported for SNL
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2008® or Windows Server 2003® (recommended)
  • DVD drive or Internet enabled network connection

(1) SolidWorks 2010 will be the last version to support Windows XP Professional.

(2) Supports SolidWorks 2010 SP1 or higher (based on Windows 7 availability).

(3) Windows Vista Ultimate, Business and Enterprise editions only (SP0 or higher).

(4) Windows Vista 64-bit is supported for SolidWorks 2008 SP3.1 or higher. The Education Edition, Student 
     Edition, and Student Design Kit are supported after the 2008-2009 academic school year.

(5) Supported for Windows XP Professional SP2 or higher.

(6) eDrawings and eDrawings Professional is supported on all operating systems listed above and Mac 
     OS X 10.4.x or higher. eDrawings 2010 will be the last version to support Mac OS X 10.4.x.

(7) SolidWorks is not supported on Apple Macintosh®-based machines.

(8) Novell networks and non-Windows based network storage devices are not tested or recommended.
(9) The Windows operating system requirements follow the Microsoft Windows life-cycle policy which can be
     viewed at http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselect.

 

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