SOLIDWORKS 2013 on a Windows 8 Surface Tablet... will it run?

Good afternoon everyone just wanted to take a moment to share some info with you about SolidWorks and Windows 8. First stay tuned to this blog over the next couple of weeks to see hands on SOLIDWORKS in Windows 8. Outside of seeing campaign ads every 22.5 seconds you’ve probably seen SURFACE commercial with Windows 8 RT. It looks really cool, but will it run SolidWorks.

That answer is no, not those tablets, not right now, but in the future. The reason for this is Surface tablets you see in the commercial are based on ARM chipset, which is much different than AMD or Intel. Windows RT is what is installed on these types of devices and standard Windows programs will not install on them. They will only accept apps from the Windows App Store. With that said later this year Microsoft will be releasing the Windows Surface Pro tablets that are base on the normal chipsets required for our applications to install and run. So never fear your SOLIDWORKS will run on a tablet faster than you think.

Bob McGaughey, CSWE

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