Solidworks seems to work fine on a Mac

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03-19-2018, 01:30 PM
Les A

Solidworks seems to work fine on a Mac

Contrary to the note on the EAA Solidworks page, Solidworks installed and runs fine on my Mac laptop. I think whats new is that there is a register fix available for the Windows virtual machines that lets Solidworks access the capabilities of the Mac's graphics card.

- I loaded the latest version of Parallels (Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac)--That has a free trial of several weeks if you want to test it out before spending $80.

- I loaded the latest version of Windows 10 (which also has a trial period I gather, since its running and I didn't input the key, but it does have a flag reminding me to do so)

- Download and installed Solidworks from Solidworks per the EAA instructions.

- On the Parallels site they offer a free patch to install on Windows that fixes the registries so Solidworks can access the Mac's graphics card. Download it and install it in your Windows operating system (with Solidworks not running). I installed this patch before I installed Solidworks, but I don't think that sequence matters.
Get the patch from Parallels here: https://kb.parallels.com/en/122790. The 2017 patch was the correct version for the Solidworks 2017-2018 Student Edition available through EAA.

On the Apple forum, someone said they are also running Solidworks from Bootcamp just fine. I suspect any of the Virtual Machine apps could be acceptable so long as they can run Windows properly. But give a cheer to Parallels for providing the patch)

I'm a Solidworks beginner, so I didn't create anything useful yet. But I did download a few fairly intricate models and was able to render, manipulate and edit them with no noticeable lag or other limitations. However starting the applications (Parallels, then Solidworks) and loading a file does seem to take its time.

I have a Macbook Pro, 2011 vintage, 2Ghz Intel Core i7 processor with 8G of memory, running the latest version of OS10 (10.13.2) and an Apple 27" display plugged into it. So its a pretty old, off-the-shelf machine. I suspect newer Macs, especially with more RAM might be even better. Still what I have did not seem to any negative operating issues other than the slow initial loading. For me this was a much cheaper and better integrated approach to learning Solidworks than buying a Windows machine with roughly equivalent horsepower.
03-20-2018, 12:24 PM
Cory Puuri

Thanks for sharing this, Les! I actually have a few other members running it on Macs and have suggested both Bootcamp and Parallels to them. I've been looking for someone to write an article for the EAA Blog with a few screen captures. Would you have any interest?
03-22-2018, 11:21 AM
Les A

Cory,
I could give it a shot. Are you thinking just expanding what I wrote about--more "how to" with screen shots?
LA
03-26-2018, 04:09 PM
Cory Puuri

Quote:

Originally Posted by Les A

Cory,
I could give it a shot. Are you thinking just expanding what I wrote about--more "how to" with screen shots?
LA

That's it. I think they have a 900 word limit. I'm hoping you plan to use it for modeling aviation parts. If so, maybe talk a little bit about that, too, as your motivation for installing it.
05-09-2018, 12:35 PM
conodeuce

I, as well, have been having success with Solidworks on my Mac. I installed Parallels just for this purpose. Mine is a 27" inch iMac, late 2014 model with 32 GB RAM, running the latest OSX (High Sierra). Installation of Windows the Parallels was remarkably trivial. No crashes as of yet. The shading is working well.
07-05-2018, 12:44 PM
rthresh

MacBook 2016 I7, 16GB with Radeon Pro 460 4GB and Intel HD 530-1.5gb

MacBook 2016 I7, 16GB with Radeon Pro 460 4GB and Intel HD 530-1.5gb

I have a subscription to Parallels 13, and have installed Win 10 w updated os. I also created an external boot drive, but the MS update killed that one, so now just parallels. It runs well for most things. Parallels lets me create a 4cpu vm with 8gb ram. Great for what I do. BUT, Windoz doesn't recognize the Parallels Display Adaptor (WDDM) so no Realview graphics. or Zebra curves etc... My graphic bar (on keyboard ) works Aok.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Les A

Contrary to the note on the EAA Solidworks page, Solidworks installed and runs fine on my Mac laptop. I think whats new is that there is a register fix available for the Windows virtual machines that lets Solidworks access the capabilities of the Mac's graphics card.

- I loaded the latest version of Parallels (Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac)--That has a free trial of several weeks if you want to test it out before spending $80.

- I loaded the latest version of Windows 10 (which also has a trial period I gather, since its running and I didn't input the key, but it does have a flag reminding me to do so)

- Download and installed Solidworks from Solidworks per the EAA instructions.

- On the Parallels site they offer a free patch to install on Windows that fixes the registries so Solidworks can access the Mac's graphics card. Download it and install it in your Windows operating system (with Solidworks not running). I installed this patch before I installed Solidworks, but I don't think that sequence matters.
Get the patch from Parallels here: https://kb.parallels.com/en/122790. The 2017 patch was the correct version for the Solidworks 2017-2018 Student Edition available through EAA.

On the Apple forum, someone said they are also running Solidworks from Bootcamp just fine. I suspect any of the Virtual Machine apps could be acceptable so long as they can run Windows properly. But give a cheer to Parallels for providing the patch)

I'm a Solidworks beginner, so I didn't create anything useful yet. But I did download a few fairly intricate models and was able to render, manipulate and edit them with no noticeable lag or other limitations. However starting the applications (Parallels, then Solidworks) and loading a file does seem to take its time.

I have a Macbook Pro, 2011 vintage, 2Ghz Intel Core i7 processor with 8G of memory, running the latest version of OS10 (10.13.2) and an Apple 27" display plugged into it. So its a pretty old, off-the-shelf machine. I suspect newer Macs, especially with more RAM might be even better. Still what I have did not seem to any negative operating issues other than the slow initial loading. For me this was a much cheaper and better integrated approach to learning Solidworks than buying a Windows machine with roughly equivalent horsepower.
04-20-2020, 04:49 AM
VMO/MMO

I have Solidworks running on my MacBook Pro using Bootcamp but for some reason cannot delete things. I admit I am very new to this but can't get very far with learning as I am hung up here. I click a line to highlight it but delete key does nothing, if I drag and creat a box to delete things, as soon as I let go of the mouse the box disappears. Is this possibly some keyboard mapping issue? I bought a textbook, watched a lot of YouTube and it works fine for them, not for me. Running Solidworks 2019/2020.
Any help or advise is appreciated.