COSMOS FloWorks user? Wanna grab the EV of 08's SP4? Read here first.

So you say you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for SP4 of SolidWorks 2008.  And you've seen the download for the EV (early visibility) release on your Customer Portal.  But now you're wondering if you should download it.

If you're a COSMOS FloWorks (SolidWorks' Computational Fluid Dynamics software) user you might want to think twice. Why?  Because Flo studies are not backwards compatible to the previous Service Packs.

Straight from the horse's mouth.... or better, the SolidWorks Knowledge Base, see Solution Article S-016109. Users who've upgraded to SP4 will be greeted with a message "Wrong file format" but SolidWorks will still load. The answer to this article: "COSMOSFloWorks is not backward compatible. Upgrading the machine with COSMOSFloWorks SP2 to SP4 will correct the "Wrong File Format" error message. Unfortunately there is no work around other than recreating the model using the SP2 version or upgrading to SP4."

This means that if the company is going to upgrade its users, all the users ought to upgrade, even if only one or two are FloWorks users.  This should cause the CAD administrator and the user community to think twice before haphazardly downloading and installing new service packs. As always, if you have a question or concern, please call your reseller first and let them offer their input and help guide your decision. (This is also a good time to 1. make sure your organization has backups and restore points and 2. keep an eye on those individuals who are always the first to grab new releases and install them independantly from the rest of the community)