Thumbnails for Mastercam files gone after MCFSW uninstall

[gargodude]

I recently upgraded to X9 from X6 and decided to see how Mastercam for Solidworks looks so I installed it. After playing with it for a while, I decided that it slowed down Solidworks way too much for my taste and I have 3 releases of new features to catch up on with the standalone X9, so I uninstalled MCFSW. Everything seemed to go well except that now when selecting to view icons in Windows Explorer or Mastercam file open, the thumbnails for the part files are no longer there. All you see is the X9 logo for each X9 file icon. Since I often use this feature to find old parts visually when I can't remember the part number, the loss of this feature is a real problem for me. All other thumbnails, including those for Solidworks files are still visible. Just my Mastercam files have this problem. I spoke to Tom at CNC Software about this and he didn't know what the problem was. I didn't make the connection to the uninstall of MCFSW until after I hung up with him and it was tool late to call him back about it.

 

I read up a bit about thumbnails and seems that it's up to each piece of software to generate its own. I figured that once MCFSW was installed, it took over responsibility from the standalone X9 install for generating the thumbnails for X9, and once I uninstalled it, it took away from both. I decided to try rolling back Windows to the day before I uninstalled MCFSW and the thumbnails returned! Woohoo! I figured that my troubles were over......until I tried launching Firefox. No go. After messing with that for 3 hours, I ended up re-installing Firefox and everything was OK, except that Windows/Solidworks still thought MCFSW was there again, so I uninstalled it AGAIN. Well, guess what happened to my MC thumbnails? Gone.

 

I thought I'd throw this out there to see if anybody else had this problem before I go around and around again. Any ideas?

[Watcher]

You probably had some dll / ocx component uninstalled.

 

Cimco NC-Base / PDM are able to show thumbnails once these components are registered. I'm attending a meeting now but after leaving it, I'll try to find the procedures to register them.

 

 

 

 

[Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.]

It sounds like MCforSW is unregistering the DLL that is used to control the display of the thumbnails.

I bet if you run a repair of your MC install that will re-register it.

 

I'd like to hear some of the details regarding how you feel MCforSW "slowed down Solidworks way too much". In particular places in SW? Only at startup? Thanks in advance.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Pete Rimkus from CNC Software Inc.

[gcode]

On my machines MCfSW doubles the SW launch time if I have it activated in the Add-In menu

To get around this, I leave it off and turn it on manually when I need it

Once it's up and running I don't notice any difference in SW performance

[Watcher]

Not sure if this is the DLL because this one works for SW files... For Mastercam I think there´s another DLL and as I don´t have MC I can´t tell you which one...

 

Unless you are curious and browse Mastercam installation looking for a DLL with a name that resembles what you´re after...

 

Then you can register the file using regsvr32 - The process is the same for both MC and SW DLLs.

 

For SW files, do a serach on your computer for a file named "SW_ExtractBitmap.dll"

 

Then enter in the command prompt and type: regsvr32 "FullPathWhereTheFileIsLocated\SW_ExtractBitmap.dll"

 

The same is true for MC DLL once you figure out its name. Should not be difficult to spot it in the MC installation folders.

 

This is a way to get it back without re-installing MC. But if you can´t find the DLL name, the easiest way is re-installing/repairing its installation;

[Sticky]

Like Gcode, I leave mcfsw off until I actually need to start making tool paths. Startup is at least double the time or longer with it on, but the biggest thing is that the stability of sw using and creating big assemblies sucks with mastercam on (lots of crashes, slow performance etc). That said after I have created the assembly, as long as I don't need to modify anything, having mc running to make toolpaths works fine.

[gargodude]

Per Mike at CNC Software, I tried a repair install of Mastercam. No help. All it did was mess with some of my config settings (which I now have memorized). I also found a new problem. I was going to try a repair installation of Solidworks, but my SolidWorks Installation Manager no longer works. I was on the phone with SW tech support for 2-1/2 hrs. before we ended up doing another rollback to before MCFSW was installed. This fixed the MC thumbnail issue, SolidWorks startup issue and hosed Firefox again for some reason. Re-installed FF but I still have the SW IM issue. At least for now I can use SW and MC to get caught up on some work, but I have to get this SW IM issue fixed before I can do any SW updates. Still working with SW tech support on this.

 

Thanks guys for the advice to un-check MCFSW from the Add-ins to speed up SW loading, but at this point I have lost so much time messing with this issue, it's unlikely that I will be doing any more with MCFSW in this release. If a simple uninstall can cause this many problems, I won't be installing it again any time soon.