PTC Frustrates Out of the Box

The Pro/E "out-of-the-box" experience has got me in a bad mood.

I had never installed Pro/E before. I had been warned that it "takes forever" which had already made me a tad anxious. But a customer sent me a PRT file and I had no choice. I pulled the Wildfire 3.0 box off the shelf and in 5 minutes, came to a screeching halt.

A brief chronology that should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone intent on creating a good out-of-the-box experience:

1. I put in the first CD, but it doesn't do anything. Oh, there's several disks here. I had put in disk 2. What's wrong with a DVD, I wonder?
2. I put in disk 1. Oh oh. The seal is broken. I may have tried this unsuccessfully before.
3. I click past the long winded EULA. I'm jaded and no longer read that, so still only mildly annoyed.
4. I am told there is no FLEXnet license. What the hell is that? I look for a code on the box. Nothing. On the CD envelope. No luck. Maybe it was silly to expect Pro/E install to act like every other installation.
5. I continue but the next screen wants a license serve and host name. Now I'm flipping through the (too thick) installation guide which tells me I should have received or can recieve (I'm not clear on this) a License Pack by email. If I ever did get one, it was hundreds of thousands of emails ago. I have hope of finding that.
6. I go to the URL as recommended by the installation guide, www.ptc.com/olm which initially gives me an error message but after playing with variations of the URL, I get it to say I am not authorized. Maybe, because on this computer, I am not recognized as being part of PTC's club.
7. - I log into PTC.com. It takes me a couple of tries to get it right, because I think it was years ago I had registered. But I must have registered for a press event or for a download (I can't remember), apparently not the right credentials for help with the license so IT STILL WON"T GIVE ME A LICENSE!
8. I look for a phone number. Like most big companies, the phone support is hidden under several layers of web pages. No, I don't want FAQs, or a damn knowledge search,  I don't want to send an email inot a black hole, just a human who I can plead with to let me start using the application.
9. I find a toll free number for tech support in the US and call. I get a voice menu even though the literature gives a firect number for licensing. A recorded message tells me the offices are closed. No time opening time is given (it's Friday night at PTC headquarters). Would I care to leave a message.
10.  stare at the screen entitled "World Wide Support." Ironic, for PTC now seems neither world wide or supportive.

Comments

[Frustrated]

Dead on - only it gets worse the further you go. Try to uninstall a service release and go backwards (hope you imaged your drive first...). How about using pro/e with Flexnet and another application already using flexnet? When you have to "hard stop" the server you crash everyone on all applications running the flexnet server - fun. Still have zero luck running pro/e thru a VPN.

Worst part - pro/e is not even worth the effort to go thru all this pain. Buy something else.

[Josh]

I sometimes wonder about the credibility of posts like these. My ProE install took less than five minutes and everything went as smooth as butter. Only problem was having to take out the CD to view the product code when generating the license.

[bob smith]

You sound like a tool bag. Had you just paid any attention to the instructions it would have only taken you about 5 minutes to install.

[Mark Engineer]

You could have bypassed the entire ProE experience & simply translated the .prt file directly into SolidWorks if you had the program. SW is simply light years beyond ProE in being user friendly & the functionality/features are equivalent or better. Support for the product is totally beyond what I've seen from PTC.

[Gavin Quinlan]

Roopinder,

If you ever need any further help with Pro/ENGINEER installation, please feel free to call or email me directly and we will assist you.

It may seem a little daunting at the start but it's no more complicated than having a login for your gmail and providing some hardware details so that the 'licence robots' can create a correct network licence for your hardware.

PTC do not charge extra for this network licence unlike some other 3D CAD vendors. This is really useful in the small engineering workgroup where all users can install the software on their own pc and share the licence, no swapping dongles or pcs to get work done and no dongles going missing...

I've done this installation process with users who have little or no IT knowledge and it takes less than 10 minutes.

The PTC tech support line is open 24 hours a day for our supported customers again unlike some vendors who do not possess any corporate based support structures.

Gavin Quinlan
VAR Principal
Honeycomb Solutions
Dublin, Ireland
(gquinlan@honeycomb.ie)

[Ries van Twisk]

I didn't found the installation hard at all, just follow the instructions and off you go.

For me when I read the above text by Roopinder Tara, I can only conclude that you are not a patience guy/girl and can be easily frustrated. If people tell you ' I had been warned that it "takes forever"', and THAT makes you anxious to start off with, then you are already off to a bad start anyways and biased to create this blog entry like this in the first place.

I think that PTC is one of teh view companies that truly understand how software should work, specially when it comes to top-down / parametric modeling.

Ries

[Joe Aggie]

This experience is typical whenever you want to install a high-end engineering software (including CAD systems or Matlab). However, most of modern CAD vendors have efficient technical support including 24X5 phone-support, even reaching a support engineer in India or China if you call off-hours. Looks like PTC is yet implement that.

[Chris Pollard]

Sure you could install Solidworks but the last time we did that it was no fun either. Also the Solidworks modeller still fails occasionally with open surfaces and muddled cuts. The response from their support is "just try it another way". And let me even start on about assemblies in Solidworks or the crummy constrainting system. No - Pro/E is still the better modeller.

[Michael Campbell]

Hi Roopinder –

A few comments…

1. Good point on DVD distribution. Pro/E Wildfire 5.0 (available now in Preproduction) is only available on DVD, if you were to request a copy to be sent to you. But when we released that version of the software that you are working with, almost three years ago, our surveys of users indicated that most of them did not have DVD readers, so we continued to ship CDs. In fact, most customers don’t even install off the CD’s we ship, they go to the web site and download the software directly from there.
2. When you were given the software, you were likely provided a license file tied to your hardware CPU. It was just a single file that you point to during the install – no need to install a FlexLm server or anything like that. I think you were given it for the Media event in January 2006, or maybe even at last year’s event when we rolled out Pro/E Wildfire 4.0. Anyway, a typical customer would have a Sales Order Number, and be able to enter that on our website, and be sent a license file. Feel free to contact me directly, and I will get you an updated license, and updated software if you need it.
3. If you are just looking at a Pro/E part, there are easier ways to do so than by installing Pro/E (and yes, by that statement I do concede that Installing the software can be complicated, and you should also know that we are working on improving that.) For example, there’s a free Pro/E file viewer, called ProductView Express. Download it by clicking on my name in this comment… and yes, there’s a EULA for that, too. Shorter than the one for Pro/E, but required nonetheless.

I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience installing Pro/E. While we can and must make this process more streamlined, the situation you are in is not the same one most of our customers are in. They pay for the software, and then immediately receive the instructions, license files and current software. The majority install it shortly thereafter without issue.

If you need some assistance, please do let me know.

Regards,

~ Mike

Michael M. Campbell
SVP Product Management, Desktop Products
PTC
781.370.5039

[John N]

Actually the local blizzard Friday, may have shut down the office, but that doesn't excuse the rest of the experience.
To properly install the Pro/E seat you have to run the Flex LM stuff first and get your machine ID to email in, then continue the main installation after you get the file. The precise sequence is buried in the instructions somewhere. (good luck determining which installation scenario applies to your computer)

Beware any firm that provides a bound "Customer Service Guide" of 100+ pages that explain exactly how to ask them for help.

Also beware of installation on a laptop as the wireless may come up as the first machine ID choice, which can end up locking out your Pro/E whenever the wireless is off. You can choose the wired NIC if the laptop has one, but you have to know to do so.