Back Compatibility

[mbrehmer]

Does anyone else have an issue with compatibility?

We always used to have a few users check the newest release to make sure nothing drastic was broken. Now, a few of us are in Creo 6 playing around and anything we check in / save / whatever; no user still on Creo 5 can open those parts and assemblies. (Happened on the upgrade to 5 from 4 as well)

Call me crazy, but when a company breaks back compatibility within its product, isn't that a no-no?? Or shouldn't there be a way to down save to a previous release so that everyone can play nice?

What if we have to send a file to a customer to use and they don't have a service contract and have the latest Rev of this product??

How is this ok? I've already talked to customer support on this issue and their response was: "I guess you should not upgrade" Not exactly the best response in my opinion. 

[KenFarley]

Software usually doesn't have that type of compatibility. If you write a file out in the latest version of a program like AutoCAD, MS Word, and yes, Creo, you usually can't read it in with an older version of the software. That's not how things are done. The data format is pretty much always going to be different and since the programmers of the old versions were not clairvoyant futurists, they didn't build in code to handle the new versions.

Being able to read older versions into the new one, however, is very much expected. But, once someone has read the old file into the new program and saved it, it's in that new format and probably won't be readable by the old program.

[mbrehmer]

In most software there is usually an option to save it to a format the older versions can use. With these far more frequent updates from Creo there is more and more issues with compatibility. Everyone, including our customers now need to make sure they are operating the same versions. Isn't an issue inside main builds but with a new version coming out every year, I see this being a pain for us.

[BenLoosli · Accepted solution]

There is NO 3D solid modeling CAD software on the market today that offers backward compatibility using their primary CAD format. CATIA, NX, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, Creo all do not have a save-as to prior version option.

You MAY save-as to a neutral file format - STEP, DXF.IGES, Parasolid, etc and then read those files into an older version. With Parasolid, you can go back several versions, but that is only the solid model, no drawings.

PTC does offer an addon that you can install to allow an older version to read the latest file format, it is called GCRI.

See this article: https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article?n=CS34192

[mbrehmer]

Thanks! That is actually helpful.