End Of Support Announcement for Old Versions of CAD Software

Sydney, Australia 30 January 2015 - With the opening of year 2015, CADDIT announces the scheduled end, on 1 April 2015, for basic licensing and installation support for the following products:
progeCAD 2011 and older, including USB and Network Versions
Alibre Design 2011, Alibre Design 2011 and all older versions.

Users of these products are strongly encouraged to upgrade. For convenience, upgrade orders can be placed online at the CADDIT website. Here are the links.

For upgrading to progeCAD 2014 (includes 2015 upgrade free) choose the appropriate stand alone, USB or Network upgrade from here:
http://www.caddit.net/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=12

For upgrading Alibre Pro or Expert to Geomagic Design or Geomagic Design ELEMENTS, you will need to resume your maintenance subscription from here:
http://www.caddit.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=74


Old Alibre users with lapsed maintenance are not CURRENT, and will need to buy the "Add.. to existing license" subscription product listed on that page. Note also, Alibre Design Standard no longer exists and that the upgrade offer from 3D Systems for this product has now expired. Old STANDARD users will be required to purchase a new license of Geomagic Design to resume upgrades and installation support.


What is basic licensing and installation support? This means any help from our local office in re-installing, moving, lost keys or passwords, registering, unregistering or otherwise assisting a user of a deprecated product.


Why is installation support removed from outdated products? First, we want to express our appreciation for all of the engineers, architects, builders, designers and manufacturers who have selected our products from among many in the past. Frankly, we have little choice in this matter of very old version support. With Operating System support removed from Windows XP and Vista by Microsoft, supporting older software not only becomes unviable, but also unsafe as these systems are no longer provided with critical Functionality and Security patches. Windows 7 EOL (End Of Life) was announced by Microsoft (see table here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle ). Also, 3D Systems has moved to an improved, more flexible licensing system to which we want to strongly encourage users to migrate (see announcement last year: http://cadcam3d.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/geomagic-design-3d-cad.html )

To keep costs low, progeSOFT only provides mainstream support for the current version of their product. For the progeCAD USB version, also we will be unable to replace broken keys for the older versions due to diminished hardware stock of the older USB device. Supporting very old versions of an already low-cost solution simply makes no sense, isn't practical, isn't fair to our current users going forward and in some cases unsafe for the user's system.


Our decision to end basic installation and licensing help for very old versions of these and other products is therefore inline with the included End User License Agreement of each respective product and with the computer software and hardware industry in general. For now, we will maintain limited installation support for Windows 7 for versions newer than those listed above. To clarify, although the licenses for these products are permanent, our obligation to invest our time with users who insist on staying with very outdated versions is not.

For upgrade assistance or other questions please feel free to contact our Parramatta Office.